T

he summer session of the 20th Knesset wound to a close with a burst of frenetic activity. Although the government took a couple of decisive steps, it still managed to kick some important cans down the road, until after the next round of elections.

Bibi Is Still Prime Minister

It’s not quite police brutality, but investigators recently interrogated Prime Minister Netanyahu for the eleventh time. Some allegations concern the prime minister’s affinity for food, intoxicating beverages, and cigars on someone else’s tab, and his connection to his wife Sara, about to stand trial for overspending her expense account.

Other charges are more serious. Did Bibi try to pass a law whose real goal was to obtain positive coverage for himself? Did an aide or two take bribes to buy nuclear submarines from Germany when there might be more destructive ones available at better prices? Did Bibi go to bat for his friend the oligarch to grease a lucrative merger and acquisition deal, which ultimately turned into a big loser? Only the attorney general can indict, and only the courts can pronounce guilt or innocence, but for now, Netanyahu, and the Likud, is still number one in all the polls.

Shaked Waits in the Wings

Ayelet Shaked is Israel’s great right hope, staring down the Supreme Court and forcing them to blink and accept a new slate of conservative jurists, while advancing other legislation as justice minister to curb judicial overreach. Last week, David Bitan (Likud), the former coalition chairman, publicly wooed Shaked, telling the Israel Bar Association that if Shaked bolted Naftali Bennett’s party for the Likud, she would win the Likud primaries. Bitan walked those remarks back a couple of days later, saying Shaked would finish second to Bibi, and that his was just an “innocent remark.”

Politicians at Bitan’s level don’t make innocent remarks — certainly not in front of a crowd of lawyers. It came a few days after authoritative reports in the Israeli media that Netanyahu could be indicted by February 2019. Bitan went fishing for a replacement and it’s likely Shaked was in on this. Shaked publicly nibbled at the bait but didn’t take it. Shaked has said as long as she has young children at home, the job isn’t for her, but the prime minister’s salary of close to NIS 50,000 a month offers enough loose change to hire a nanny.

It’s Official: Israel Is a Jewish state

Shocking as it may seem, until the Knesset passed the country’s 12th basic law last week — the Nationality Law, declaring Israel the national home of the Jewish People — no one ever put the obvious into writing. A vitriolic opposition claims the new law is either racist because it favors Jews, or a scary preamble to convert Israel from a parliamentary democracy to a religious theocracy.

Both arguments are faulty. Every country has some form of nationality law. Israel is a latecomer. Back in April 1930, the League of Nations granted every nation the right to pass its own laws determining qualifications for citizenship. And Avi Dichter, the sponsor of the Nationality Law, is secular — not one for plastering pashkevilim on Meah Shearim Street. If anything, it was a chareidi MK, Uri Maklev, who insisted on softening the law’s language to make it more palatable to the masses.

Draft Law Springs a Leak

Give the Knesset a year to pass a law and they’ll ask for two. The Supreme Court will soon deliberate the government’s request for seven more months beyond this September’s deadline to reformulate the draft law that the Court struck down. Negotiations between chareidi and secular coalition partners on a compromise measure were tense, but the main political drama played out inside United Torah Judaism (UTJ): The chassidic faction, led by Yaakov Litzman, opposed the compromise, threatening to bring down the government if it didn’t seek an extension, while the Lithuanian faction, led by Moshe Gafni, favored the deal. Litzman prevailed, showing that as of now, he is the chareidi MK with the most influence.

Litzman’s move is not risk-free. If the court refuses, theoretically (even if highly unlikely), chareidim could be subject to the draft. If the court approves, the seven-month extension takes us to next April. By then, Israel will be in the heat of an election campaign, giving the government another excuse to punt the ball into the next government’s end zone.

The Buddy System: Bibi and Putin

Whenever he’s not being interviewed by the police, Bibi Netanyahu is probably in touch with Vladimir Putin. Netanyahu and Putin have either met or spoken by phone 13 times in the past year, and there might have been other contacts that neither has admitted to publicly. Putin may be an unsavory and untrustworthy character, but Bibi knows how to play the game, appearing at Putin’s side at a Moscow military parade while deftly avoiding Russia’s military interests in Syria during air strikes on Iranian and Hezbollah positions.

This relationship is built on pure geopolitical necessity — but for people young enough to remember the Cold War days, when the threat of Russian intervention in an Arab-Israeli war posed an existential threat to Israel, it’s a real sea change. If Robert Mueller III really wanted to find collusion with Russia, he would be better off investigating Bibi’s growing relationship with Putin; maybe then he would come up with some evidence of the advantages of cooperation with the Kremlin.

Arabs’ Grip on West Bank Weakens

Aside from the fact that both the US and Israel have cut funding to the Palestinian Authority, and that President Trump looks singularly unsympathetic to Palestinian aspirations to supplant Israel as a Jewish state, individual West Bank Arabs will no longer be able to go to the Supreme Court with dubious legal claims to land. In another Ayelet Shaked initiative, the Knesset passed a law requiring West Bank Palestinians to turn first to an Israeli district court to settle an ownership claim before appealing to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has been Arab-friendly, viewing the issue in black and white: Only government-authorized settlements built on state-owned land are viewed as legal. Where ownership is vague, the justices have not seen it as their job to examine the conflicting claims, so the Arabs often emerge victorious. District courts hold evidentiary hearings and will do the rigorous research it takes to review records in the West Bank, which has changed hands numerous times in the last 100 years of Ottoman, British, Jordanian, and Israeli rule. (Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 720)