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Author: David Gerstman

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David Gerstman

David Gerstman blogged as Soccer Dad from 2003 to 2010. Formerly a computer programmer, he is now a blogger for The Israel Project's The Tower blog.

Posted by David Gerstman on December 15, 2014 11 Comments
Following the dissolution of the Israeli government this week, Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog and Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni agreed to join forces in an effort to unseat Likud as the governing party. At The Times of Israel Haviv Rettig Gur wrote a positive analysis of the merger, arguing that in bringing Livni on board Herzog aimed to capture the center of the Israeli electorate, rather than ceding it to Likud.
Yet Israel’s political center is actually far larger than the parties who formally declare themselves to be “centrist.” On the key issue that defines the left-right axis, Palestinian statehood, polls have shown that as many as half of those who vote for the explicitly right-wing parties Likud, Yisrael Beytenu and even Jewish Home actually support Palestinian statehood. Countless polls suggest that Israeli centrists – usually defined by pundits as those who support Palestinian independence while distrusting Palestinian willingness to reciprocate with peace – vote for the right because they hear their skepticism reflected in the rhetoric of right-wing leaders. For 20 years, Herzog’s predecessors – Labor has seen 11 leadership changes in 22 years – have been fighting a losing battle against this vast, inchoate center. But on Wednesday night, Herzog launched the left’s most dramatic bid since the 1990s for the Israeli center’s trust.
Herzog, according to Gur, no longer talks about "peace and reconciliation" but of "separation." There are two assumptions to Gur's analysis here that I'm skeptical about.

Posted by David Gerstman on December 09, 2014 16 Comments
Last week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started the process of dissolving his government coalition to bring about new elections in March of next year. One needn't be a particularly close observer of politics to know that President Barack Obama doesn't much like Netanyahu. Will Obama try to interfere with the Israeli election? Akiva Eldar, a left-wing columnist for Ha'aretz, argues in Al-Monitor that, yes, Obama should make it clear that he prefers any candidate to the incumbent.
Some of President Barack Obama’s advisers came to the conclusion that the time had come to remind the Israelis who is the boss. They encouraged the president to set a detailed outline for a permanent agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. They recommend that the process involve a fixed timetable for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 lines and the Arab Peace Initiative. According to the plan, a diet of “carrots” would be provided to the party that adopts the outline, and “sticks” would be the fate of the recalcitrant side. When the Israeli voter goes to the polling booth, he or she would know whether they vote for the carrot or the stick. The Palestinian leadership and public will also clearly envisage the end of the occupation, with the advantages that follow the end of it, vis-a-vis perpetuation of the conflict and the drawbacks involved. ...

Posted by David Gerstman on December 07, 2014 5 Comments
Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his finance minister (Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid) and justice minister (Tzippi Livni of Hatnua), both coalition partners, effectively bringing down the current government and forcing new elections now scheduled for March 17. The latest polls suggest that Netanyahu would be able to form the next coaltion.
According to a Channel 10 poll, Likud would win 22 seats, Jewish Home 17, Labor 13, Yisrael Beytenu 12, Moshe Kahlon’s as-yet-unnamed party 12, Yesh Atid nine, the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism eight, Shas seven, Meretz seven, Hatnua four and the Arab parties nine. A survey by Channel 2 showed Likud with 22, Jewish Home 17, Labor 13, Kahlon and Yisrael Beytenu with 10 apiece, Yesh Atid with nine, Shas with nine, United Torah Judaism with eight, Meretz with seven, Hatnua with four, and the Arab parties with 11. Both polls would have made pleasant reading for Likud leader Netanyahu, showing a strengthening of the right, and numerous potential coalition options for him.
However, a lot can happen in four months. For example two years ago, Likud created a joint list with Yisrael Beiteinu (Avigdor Liberman's party) and then the combined list lost ten seats in popularity polls in the final month of the campaign.

Posted by David Gerstman on December 01, 2014 3 Comments

Matti Friedman again explains how NGO's and the media prepare the ground for anti-Israel propaganda...

Posted by David Gerstman on November 25, 2014 2 Comments
It's interesting to see headlines that the P5+1 talks in Vienna about Iran's nuclear program were called a failure. On one very important level they were a success. No there was no agreement on a long term deal to roll back Iran's nuclear program. But there was an agreement to extend the Joint Plan of Action allowing Iran to keep its nuclear infrastructure in place and receive up to seven more months of sanctions relief. In other words for Iran, the negotiations were a tremendous success. Here's the Wall Street Journal (Google link):

Posted by David Gerstman on November 16, 2014 12 Comments
An editorial in The New York Times today about the ongoing P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran warns about the dire consequences of the two sides not reaching an agreement.
The consequences of failure to reach an accord would be serious, including the weakening of President Hassan Rouhani of Iran and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who count as moderates in Iran, and who, like President Obama, have taken a political risk to try to make an agreement happen.
That would be terrible. Rouhani and Zarif would be weakened!  Or would it? How much political power does Rouhini have anyway? And if they have any real political power, how moderate are they anyway? As far as the first question, well, they don't call Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the Supreme Leader for nothing. In an investigative report last year, Reuters showed that Khamenei using the organizations under his control has amassed a huge fortune by property seizures. David Daoud recently wrote:
More importantly, the Rahbar [the Supreme Leader] effectively decides who will or will not be the public face of his rule—that is, who will or will not be the president of Iran. Khamenei selects the 12 members of the Shura-ye Neghahban (“Guardian Council”), which is tasked with vetting and approving presidential candidates based on their allegiance to the ideals of the Vilayat-e Faqih. The Western media often calls Iranian leaders like ex-president Mohammad Khatami and current president Hassan Rouhani “moderates” or “reformers,” but the Guardian Council’s policies render such a characterization absurd. No genuine moderate or reformist candidate can get through the Council’s dragnet. In effect, then, the vetting process and the Rahbar’s ultimate authority negate any possibility of material change in Iran’s foreign or domestic policies.
In other words not only is Rouhani not the ultimate power in Iran, he wouldn't have achieved even his limited authority unless he was a true believer in the system. Rouhani is only a "moderate" in that he's willing to talk to the West to achieve his goals, but his goals and views are identical to those of Khamenei.

Posted by David Gerstman on November 11, 2014 4 Comments
Two Israelis were killed yesterday in separate terror attacks by knife wielding assailants. Yesterday morning, a 20 year old soldier, Almog Shiloni, was stabbed in Tel Aviv. The Times of Israel reports:
Almog Shiloni, 20, of Modiin, died of multiple wounds to his stomach and chest, an official from the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer Hospital said. “After resuscitation efforts that began in the field and continued for hours in the hospital, the stabbing victim who arrived at the hospital earlier today was declared dead,” a spokesperson announced. When Shiloni was first brought into the hospital following the attack he had no pulse, although doctors were able to restart his heart.
His girlfriend, who was talking to him on the phone at the time, rushed to the scene when she heard a commotion and Almog didn't answer. When she arrived at the scene she saw "Almog lying in a pool of blood as emergency teams tried to resuscitate him." In the afternoon a 26 year old woman, Dalia Lemkus,  was stabbed to death and two others were wounded in a knife attack in Gush Etzion (the Etzion Bloc) by a terrorist who was shot and wounded by a security guard.
The stabber was shot by a guard on duty at the site, police said. Initial reports indicated he was killed, but later reports dispelled that claim. Magen David Adom said he was in serious condition. A 26-year-old man suffered light-moderate injuries, and a man in his 50s was lightly hurt in the incident. Their names were not released. Channel 2 reported that the older man was driving by the scene when he saw the attack in progress, then stopped his car and wrestled with the attacker before suffering an injury to his face.
Sherri Mandel, whose teenage son Kobi, was killed in 2001 during the so-called "Aqsa intifada," wrote a tribute to Lemkus, What the didn't tell you about Dalia, at The Times of Israel:

Posted by David Gerstman on November 10, 2014 3 Comments
With the Senate flipping from Democratic control to Republican control, the question emerges whether the legislature, now in the hands of the opposition, will be able to rein in President Barack Obama in the event that he engineers a bad nuclear deal with Iran. In short, the Senate will almost certainly be more willing to stop a bad deal. The bad news is that it may be too late. As far as the deal itself, it is not considered a treaty and therefore not subject to Congressional approval. However, the sanctions bill passed by Congress allows the President to suspend (not permanently cancel) sanctions. A bill co-sponsored by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) that would impose stronger sanctions on Iran, if the Islamic Republic would either "violate the interim agreement or walk away from the negotiations," was scuttled by the White House in January. Although there was bi-partisan support in the Senate for the bill, Obama prevailed on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to keep the bill from coming to a vote. Obama viewed the bill as a violation of the P5+1's commitment  in last year's Joint Plan of Actions (JPA) (.pdf) to "refrain from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions." Since the Kirk-Menendez bill would only come into effect if Iran violated its commitments, Obama's concern seems baseless. With Reid no longer Majority Leader, the Kirk-Menendez bill should at least come to a vote, as incoming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in January, “We’re going to continue to press the majority leader to allow a vote on an issue that obviously enjoys the support of a very large bipartisan majority here in the Senate.”

Posted by David Gerstman on November 05, 2014 10 Comments
Maryland hasn't gone purple. Yet. But we have a Republican Governor for just the third time in 48 years. (Spiro Agnew was elected in 1966 and served until 1969, when he went to White House as Richard Nixon's vice president. Bob Ehrlich was elected in 2002, but was defeated for re-election four years later by Martin O'Malley.) Republican Larry Hogan beat Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown in a race that Real Clear Politics called a tossup and Five Thirty Eight determined he had a 6% chance of winning by surprising 9% margin. (A late poll commissioned by Hogan - and ignored by Five Thirty Eight - had him up by 5.) Though I'm very happy with his victory, Hogan will be greatly limited as both houses of Maryland's legislature have veto proof majorities. The past eight years Martin O'Malley has used Maryland as the launching pad for his presidential aspirations, with tax increases and leftist legislation. Consequently Maryland has developed a reputation as having a bad business climate due to taxes and regulations. Brown claimed that he'd be better for business but nothing in his record suggested this would be true. Brown's major initiative was universal pre-K for four-year olds.

Posted by David Gerstman on November 03, 2014 11 Comments
As the election comes down to the wire in Maryland in two days, I spent some time driving around my neighborhood looking for campaign signs. My neighborhood isn't the best bellwether for Maryland election results. If my neighborhood were representative, Bob Ehrlich would have won a second term in 2006  ... with about 80% of the vote. Instead he lost to current governor, Martin O'Malley, despite Ehrlich's maintaining an approval rating that exceeded 50%. In any case lately these "Vote for the Democrats" (see the featured image above) signs have been popping up. I guess in Maryland you vote for Democrats as a matter of faith. After all Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown wouldn't have a chance if the election turned on his competence. But Maryland Republicans have an effective comeback. One sign right next a Larry Hogan (for governor)  asks if you've had enough tax increases under the O'Malley-Brown administration. 20141102_141129_Republicans_No_Taxes O'Malley intent on being the Democratic nominee in 2016, used his two terms in office to turn Maryland into a Democratic paradise. In 2007 and 2012, O'Malley convened special sessions of the Democratic controlled legislature to raise taxes. (In 2007, the special session was called to address a $1.9 billion "structural deficit" out of a total budget of some $37.3 billion of spending, which amounted to roughly 5% of the budget.) Perhaps the Democrats' tendency to hike taxes as a first resort turned off a lot of unaffiliated voters. I'm guessing that the Republican message is gaining some traction. But the other thing that I thought was remarkable was the relative lack of Brown signs. Even many homes and businesses, which had signs promoting local Democratic candidates didn't have Brown signs. Like at the house below.

Posted by David Gerstman on October 31, 2014 6 Comments
Elder of Ziyon picked up on a recent bit of hypocrisy when Egypt began destroying hundreds of homes along the Sinai's border with Gaza. In So where are the Rachel Corries for Egypt?  Elder writes:
800 homes demolished in the next few days? Israel has never demolished so many in so little time. Yet over the years there have been numerous NGOs and reports about Israel's home demolitions - and no one cares about Egypt's. There are no groups popping up where young idealistic moronic college students volunteer to act as human shields to protect these homes. Indeed, no one cares about Egypt's demolishing homes for security purposes.
Rachel Corrie was a college student who didn't heed the IDF's warning to get out of the way during the demolition of a house in Gaza that housed a smuggling tunnel; Corrie was killed during the demolition. Elder is right in saying that there has been precious little protest of Egypt's actions. (Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch has been exception. In the case of Egypt, as with Israel, he sides with Hamas.) But what's frustrating is not just in the vastly different reactions to demolitions carried out by Israel as opposed to those carried out by Egypt, but also the contrast in how the world treats Israeli construction plans. This week the topic of Israel building in its capital, Jerusalem, has gotten the world worked up. From the New York Times (emphasis mine):
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Monday that Israel would fast-track planning for 1,060 new apartments in populous Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, a move that appears calibrated to appeal to the maximum number of Israelis while causing the minimum damage to Israel internationally, according to Israeli analysts. But as is often the case, Mr. Netanyahu’s decision prompted swift international condemnation at a time when Israel’s relations with Washington are already strained and risked further igniting Palestinian anger and tensions in Jerusalem. It was also unlikely to satisfy the right-wing political rivals it was intended to appease, the analysts said.
Though there was "Palestinian anger" there's no immediate consequence to this action. No one lost property. No one was displaced.

Posted by David Gerstman on October 29, 2014 11 Comments
Yesterday Prof Jacobson rightly assessed Jeffrey Goldberg's The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here as describing a crisis "in Obama-Israel relations." Although the White House has offered a disavowal of the profane insult made by one of Goldberg's sources, the full substance of his remarks needs to be rebutted. The offending official explained his boorish insult of Netanyahu :
“The good thing about Netanyahu is that he’s scared to launch wars,” the official said, expanding the definition of what a chickenshit Israeli prime minister looks like. “The bad thing about him is that he won’t do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states. The only thing he’s interested in is protecting himself from political defeat. He’s not [Yitzhak] Rabin, he’s not [Ariel] Sharon, he’s certainly no [Menachem] Begin. He’s got no guts.”
This is utterly false. Bret Stephens pointed out (Google link, emphasis mine):
The real problem for the administration is that the Israelis—along with all the other disappointed allies—are learning how little it pays to be on Barack Obama’s good side. Since coming to office in 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed, against his own inclination and over the objections of his political base, to (1) recognize a Palestinian state; (2) enforce an unprecedented 10-month settlement freeze; (3) release scores of Palestinian prisoners held on murder charges; (4) embark on an ill-starred effort to reach a final peace deal with the Palestinians; (5) refrain from taking overt military steps against Iran; and (6) agree to every possible cease-fire during the summer’s war with Hamas. In exchange, Mr. Kerry publicly blamed Israel for the failure of the peace effort, the White House held up the delivery of munitions at the height of the Gaza war, and Mr. Obama is hellbent on striking whatever deal the Iranians can plausibly offer him.

Posted by David Gerstman on October 22, 2014 2 Comments
Earlier today, a Palestinian drove his car off the road into a group of people who had just gotten off Jerusalem's light rail at the Ammunition Hill stop, killing a three month old baby and injuring seven others. The Times of Israel reports:
“A private car which arrived from the direction of the French Hill junction hit a number of pedestrians who were on the pavement and injured nine of them,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement. “Initial indications suggest this is a hit-and-run terror attack,” Samri said. The baby died at the nearby Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus a few hours after the incident. A spokesperson for Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said a 60-year-old woman and seven other people, including the baby’s father, were also lightly and moderately wounded in the attack. ...
The suspect , Abdelrahman al-Shaludi, previously served time in jail and has been identified by Israeli government spokesman Ofir Gendelman as a member of Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for partnering with Hamas and inciting violence.

Posted by David Gerstman on October 21, 2014 22 Comments
Remember when President Barack Obama said that the United States will "always have Israel's back" when it comes to Israel's security---especially in regards to Iran's nuclear program? Or when Secretary of State John Kerry said that with Iran "no deal was better than a bad deal?" They were lying. The administration's aim is to make a deal with Iran even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns that the emerging deal "is a threat to the entire world, and, first and foremost, this is a threat to us." Kerry's negotiation team continues to operate from a premise that "any deal is better than no deal." The Los Angeles Times is now reporting that the administration has sweetened its deal to allow Iran 4000 operational centrifuges.
The Obama administration has sweetened its offer to Iran in ongoing nuclear negotiations, saying it might accept Tehran operating 4,000 centrifuges, up from the previous 1,300, according to a semiofficial Iranian news agency. The Mehr news agency also said Monday that Iran and the six world powers seeking to negotiate a nuclear deal remained divided over how much uranium-enrichment capacity the Middle East nation should be allowed to maintain, and how to lift punitive sanctions from its economy.
Ray Tayekh, a critic of the current negotiations, observed that "the U.S. sweetener may encourage Iran to drag out negotiations to see what better offer it might receive after a few more months of talks."

Posted by David Gerstman on October 15, 2014 6 Comments
Few publications were more enthusiastic about last year's election of "moderate" Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran than The New York Times. Perhaps some of that enthusiasm stemmed from the possibility of engaging in commercial enterprises with the regime in Tehran. Ira Stoll editor of SmarterTimes noted the other day that The New York Times is promoting a tour of Iran accompanied by one of its journalists, Elaine Sciolino. After noting some of the peculiarities of the deal, Stoll writes:
There's no mention at all in the Times promotional language about the tour of Iran's status as a state supporter of terrorism, of its pursuit of nuclear weapons, or of its human rights abuses. For information about those abuses, anyone considering plunking down nearly $7,000 for the pleasure of accompanying a Times journalist on a "relaxing evening and dinner" after antique shopping in Iran may want to consider, first, browsing the State Department's latest human rights report on Iran. It reports that under Iranian law, "a woman who appears in public without an appropriate headscarf (hijab) may be sentenced to lashings and fined." It also says that "The law criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual activity, which may be punishable by death or flogging."

Posted by David Gerstman on October 08, 2014 21 Comments
The Houthis, Iranian backed rebels have taken control of Yemen's capital, Sanaa. The Washington Post reports:
The capital of Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest and perhaps most chronically unstable nation, has new masters. Shiite rebels man checkpoints and roam the streets in pickups mounted with anti­aircraft guns. The fighters control almost all state buildings, from the airport and the central bank to the Defense Ministry. Only a few police officers and soldiers are left on the streets. Rebel fighters have plastered the city with fliers proclaiming their slogan — “Death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews and victory to Islam” — a variation of a popular Iranian slogan often chanted by Shiite militants in Iraq and supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The comparison to Hezbollah is apt as Reuters is reporting that the Houthi are blocking the appointment of Yemen's president.
Abdel-Malek al-Ejri said Hadi had suggested five names at a meeting of his advisors, who represent various political parties in Yemen. When the aides failed to agree on a candidate Hadi suggested his presidential office director, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, as a compromise. "But we did not agree, and the matter is still under consultation," Ejri told Reuters.
Similarly, Hezbollah has kept Lebanon's politics unsettled preventing the appointment of a President. So what's Iran's interest in Yemen? It was spelled out by Michael Segall of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs two and a half years ago. A couple of Segall's observations are sobering:

Posted by David Gerstman on October 03, 2014 10 Comments
The lead article in the October issue of Commentary by Omri Ceren is Yes, Israel Won in Gaza. Ceren's central premise is that Hamas built a huge terror infrastructure including tunnels, an enhanced rocket arsenal and specialized training for its terrorists, but "[a]ll of it was gone by mid-August." Hamas' plans for a spectacular terror attack against Israel and a coup against Fatah in the West Bank similarly were stymied. But what really grabbed me about the article was his description of the escalation:
In Gaza, Hamas radically escalated what had been, since the beginning of the year, a steadily increasing stream of rocket fire. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon had declared in January that Jerusalem would “not tolerate rocket fire” and that the “IDF and other security forces will continue to chase after those who shoot at Israel.” February saw more rockets and a large bomb planted on the border. In March, Hamas fired its heaviest rocket barrage since the conclusion of Israel’s 2012 incursion into Gaza—but then the fire steadily decreased throughout April and May.
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