WarSclerotic

WASHINGTON – Ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer informed a senior White House official at president Barack Obama’s final White House Hanukka party that he would be forced to reach out to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team for help if the UN Security Council went ahead with a landmark resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity.

The December 14, 2016, exchange – a climactic moment in the final chapter of a hostile relationship between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the Obama administration – has not previously been reported, and may prove critical in an investigation currently under way by Robert Mueller III, the US special counsel investigating contacts between Trump’s presidential campaign and foreign governments.

Mueller, according to American press reports, is examining communications between Jared Kushner – then a senior foreign policy adviser to Trump during his transition to the White House – and Israeli government officials who were desperate to stop the resolution from proceeding to a vote. Kushner was Dermer’s point of contact with the transition team.

While Kushner was still a private citizen theoretically barred from engaging in efforts to subvert US foreign policy, White House protocol encourages presidential transition teams to engage with foreign dignitaries as they prepare to assume the responsibilities of government.

Israel’s clash with the US that December was an exceptional episode, pitting two successive White House administrations against each other over an imminent foreign policy decision. The Obama team was willing to let a condemnatory resolution on Israel pass at the UN in its final days, while the Trump team aggressively opposed the move.

Former US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power speaks at the UN headquarters in New York on July 20 (Reuters)

Trump’s efforts to kill the UN measure – including the president-elect’s personal overtures to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, which originally proposed the resolution, as well as the Trump team’s outreach to Russia, which has veto power at the Security Council – were widely reported at the time. Israel’s effort to encourage Trump to intervene was also extensively reported in the proceeding weeks.

The Security Council resolution, numbered 2334, ultimately passed, after the Obama administration declined to veto the measure. Israeli officials claim that Obama lied about his administration’s role in orchestrating passage of the resolution, which characterizes all Israeli construction in east Jerusalem as settlement activity pursued in “flagrant violation” of international law.

Persons with direct knowledge of the exchange confirmed to The Jerusalem Post that the Israeli ambassador informed the Obama administration, on the sidelines of the White House holiday reception, of his intent to reach out to Trump’s team – exactly one week before Egypt introduced its original draft of the resolution in public, which it pulled one day later, on December 22, under intensive pressure from the president-elect. Dermer later said that Israel had proof Obama was working behind the scenes to push the resolution toward a vote.

Mueller is investigating Kushner’s contacts with foreign governments unknown or unreported to the government. It is not clear whether the special counsel’s office is aware of Dermer’s effort to inform the government in power at the time of Israel’s intent to contact the presidential transition team.

A spokesman for Kushner’s attorney, Peter Mirijanian, told the Post that, “without commenting on who he talks with and how he does his work, Mr. Kushner is in conformity with the Presidential Records Act and other rules.” Kushner’s adherence to this law is under scrutiny in light of his use of private email to conduct government business.

Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said last week that he was not personally knowledgeable of or involved with a coordinated effort by Israel and Trump’s transition team to kill the resolution.

“I am not knowledgeable what are the rules here in the US,” the ambassador told the Post in an interview. “I don’t know what’s accepted or not accepted in American politics.

“But I can tell you,” he continued, “in terms of Israel, we spoke with whomever we could – and we explained to everyone why it is a bad resolution.”

The White House declined to comment for this report.

Daniel J. Roth contributed to this report from New York.

NEGOTIATIONS THAT led to a landmark nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 were lavish and public affairs. Over a two-year period, diplomats from six world powers and Tehran camped out in Europe’s finest hotels, surrounded by legions of press from all across the world eager for details from behind gilded conference room doors.

The new Iran talks, on the other hand – quietly announced last month by US President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson – are shaping up to be quite different. These negotiations do not include the press. They do not include Iran. And they are up against a very short deadline of 120 days.

These talks, held directly between State Department officials and their counterparts from Britain, France and Germany, or the E3, are over whether it is possible to broker an addendum agreement to the 2015 nuclear accord that will keep Trump from killing it outright.

European governments know the stakes are high. But they don’t know the standard for success they are working toward, given the president’s imprecise threats, his political interest in scrubbing the deal and his seemingly vague understanding of the nonproliferation agreement in the first place.

Last month, Trump gave Paris, London and Berlin a mid-May deadline to come up with a new sanctions framework around the nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, agreeing “for the last time” to waive nuclear-related sanctions critical to US participation in the deal.

“My administration has engaged with key supplemental agreement that would impose new multilateral sanctions if Iran develops or tests long-range missiles, thwarts inspections, or makes progress toward a nuclear weapon – requirements that should have been in the nuclear deal in the first place,” Trump said.

“Today, I am waiving the application of certain nuclear sanctions, but only in order to secure our European allies’ agreement to fix the terrible flaws of the Iran nuclear deal,” he added. “This is a last chance. In the absence of such an agreement, the United States will not again waive sanctions in order to stay in the Iran nuclear deal. And if at any time I judge that such an agreement is not within reach, I will withdraw from the deal immediately.”

Trump’s deadline caught European leaders off guard. Does the president expect them to complete a new, supplemental agreement that “fixes” the agreement to his liking in four short months? Would a framework for negotiations suffice? Or is this simply Trump posturing, preparing the world for his inevitable withdrawal?

It’s a controversial move that would spark heated internal debate within Europe – and one that, if executed, would set up a direct confrontation with Washington, and a potential trade war. Europeans are generally in agreement that US secondary sanctions, which they refer to as “extraterritorial,” violate international law and the spirit of their historic alliances with the US.

Europe has imposed blocking regulations to protect their businesses working in Cuba from US penalties. But the case of Iran is wholly different, involving a bigger market drawing larger companies exposed to greater risk – and a country the US deems a top national security threat.

Trump’s team is working directly with the E3 after giving up on the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Frederica Mogherini, whom they view as politically invested in the survival in JCPOA. The EU organized the original 2013-15 Iran talks, which included the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran.

Mogherini has warned that the EU will not take part in any supplemental deals that impose new terms onto the nuclear agreement. And she opposes new European action against Iran’s ballistic missile work – one of Trump’s baseline requirements for remaining within the JCPOA.

Trump has also asked European powers to address Iran’s regional behavior, noting that its aggressive tactics in the Middle East have been emboldened by the nuclear deal itself.

“I also call on all our allies to take stronger steps with us to confront Iran’s other malign activities. Among other actions, our allies should cut off funding to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its militant proxies, and anyone else who contributes to Iran’s support for terrorism,” Trump said. “They should designate Hezbollah – in its entirety – as a terrorist organization. They should join us in constraining Iran’s missile development and stopping its proliferation of missiles, especially to Yemen. They should join us in countering Iran’s cyber threats. They should help us deter Iran’s aggression against international shipping. They should pressure the Iranian regime to stop violating its citizens’ rights. And they should not do business with groups that enrich Iran’s dictatorship or fund the Revolutionary Guard and its terrorist proxies.

“No one should doubt my word,” he continued. “I said I would not certify the nuclear deal – and I did not. I will also follow through on this pledge. I hereby call on key European countries to join with the United States in fixing significant flaws in the deal, countering Iranian aggression, and supporting the Iranian people. If other nations fail to act during this time, I will terminate our deal with Iran.”

SINCE THE president’s ultimatum, administration officials have offered mixed messages on what they will accept as adequate progress in talks with Europe to continue negotiations, justifying for Trump one more sanctions waiver. One official said he expects an agreement that “enshrines certain triggers that the Iranian regime cannot exceed related to ballistic missiles; related to a nuclear breakout period, to hold them to one year or less, and to inspection; and that would have no sunset clause.”

Their bullish rhetoric has born some fruit: France and Britain have already called for additional action against Iran’s “malign activities” regionwide, and warned that Tehran is in violation of existing international laws banning its ballistic missile work.

But they continue to insist on protecting the “fundamentals” of the nuclear deal itself, and on “compartmentalizing” talks such that the core of the JCPOA – its basic text – remains unaffected. And that position may prove irreconcilable with the Trump administration’s stance. It may be that no amount of time for negotiations would alter it.

Despite the president’s threats, Tillerson cautioned recently that Washington cannot force Europe to act one way or another, much less in a matter of weeks.

“The US is under a bit of a timetable to deliver on what the president is looking for, but we don’t – we can’t set timetables for others,” he told reporters on January 22, announcing his intent to “formalize” working groups on the matter.

Tillerson, who toured the Middle East this month, is leading an effort within the administration to keep Trump from tearing up the nuclear accord, hoping instead that he will leverage his threats to bring Europe to a meaningful compromise.

“It’s always darkest before the dawn,” Tillerson said.

One of the distressing aspects of the police probes against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is that police seem to be attributing criminality to normal policy-making.

To date, the Bezeq-Walla investigation, dubbed Case 4000 by the police, is being presented as the mother lode – the probe that will sink Netanyahu.

Case 4000 exploded last week with pre-dawn arrests of some of the most powerful people in Israel. Telecommunications giant Bezeq’s owner Shaul Elovitch, his wife, Iris, and their son Or were nabbed in their beds. So was Netanyahu’s former communications chief Nir Hefetz and former director-general of the Communications Ministry and Netanyahu confidante Shlomo Filber.

The headlines screamed “Bribery!” And the reports were no calmer.

The media reported that the police have hard evidence Netanyahu and Filber colluded to give Netanyahu’s crony Elovitch hundreds of millions of shekels in tax and regulatory breaks for Bezeq. In exchange, Elovitch, who also owns the popular Walla Internet site, agreed to give positive coverage of Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, on Walla’s news site.

Before we could consider the evidence, Netanyahu’s fate was sealed. He was a goner.

But when the smoke cleared, it became apparent that there isn’t anything there.

Netanyahu and Filber did give Bezeq and its subsidiary, satellite television provider Yes, regulatory and tax breaks.
On the regulatory side, the Communications Ministry agreed to end the forced separation between the two commonly owned corporations.

As Eli Zippori noted last Friday in Globes, far from being a criminal conspiracy, the move was perfectly sound policy. By allowing the two companies to work together, the government improved the lot of consumers. Together they could offer the public discounted service bundles that include landlines, Internet service and television service.

Moreover, in exchange for permitting them to work together, Bezeq agreed to permit private Internet providers to operate off of its communications infrastructure. Today, Zippori noted, 550,000 Israelis receive Internet through such services.

Would another policy move have brought better results for the public? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean this policy was wrong or criminal.

As for the tax breaks, it is true that Yes received hundreds of millions in tax relief. Yet as Zippori noted, Yes’s corporate losses topped a billion shekels. The Income Tax Authority routinely gives tax relief to corporations that lose money. And the higher the losses, the higher the tax break.

Would it have been better for the government to discriminate against Yes? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean this policy was wrong or criminal.

So the case that spells Netanyahu’s doom is no case at all. It’s a policy dispute. It isn’t surprising that the police are trying to criminalize Netanyahu’s policies in Case 4000. They’re doing the same thing in Case 1000 and in Case 3000.

Case 1000 involves Netanyahu’s support for amending the so-called Milchan law. The law, passed in 2008 under the Olmert government, provides a 10-year income tax and reporting exemption for overseas income. The law was passed to encourage wealthy expatriates and immigrants to move to Israel. It is called the Milchan law because businessman Arnon Milchan pushed very hard to get it passed.

In 2013, Milchan sought to extend the law’s exemptions to 20 years. Netanyahu supported its extension.

The police allege that Netanyahu’s support for the law’s extension owes to the fact that Milchan gave him free cigars for a decade or so. The problem with the police’s claim is that Netanyahu’s position reflects the same economic positions he has held for decades. Moreover, his position was shared by the Immigration and Absorption Ministry, which like him, supported the law and the proposed amendment because it encouraged immigration of wealthy individuals and capital flows into Israel.

Then-finance minister Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid is the star witness against Netanyahu. Although like Netanyahu, Lapid and Milchan are old friends, and Lapid met with Milchan twice about the proposed amendment, Lapid eventually bowed to his ministry’s position that the law induced money laundering and is therefore problematic.

Was Netanyahu’s position wrong? Did the Finance Ministry’s position serve the public’s interest better? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean his policy was wrong or criminal.

In Case 3000, Netanyahu is accused of basing his support for Israel’s purchase of German submarines on his cronies’ monetary interests. Netanyahu’s attorney and cousin David Shimron represented the German shipyard.

The problem with this claim is that Netanyahu has publicly supported expanding and modernizing Israel’s submarine fleet for 20 years.

True, some senior officials in the IDF and the Defense Ministry oppose expanding Israel’s submarine fleet. Their position is not without merit. But that doesn’t mean that Netanyahu’s position was wrong or criminal.

Yet in all of these cases, the police leakers are telling the media that Netanyahu’s policy positions were criminal acts. Rather than reject these claims as absurd on their face, and recognize that they contradict the basic values of a free society, the media have been mindlessly parroting them.

Which brings us to Case 2000 and the second half of Case 4000.

These investigations revolve around the premise that Netanyahu engaged in criminal activity when he sought to receive less hostile coverage from the Yediot Aharonot media group and from Walla news portal.

Yediot publisher Arnon Mozes and Elovitch are accused of offering bribes to Netanyahu in the form of better coverage in exchange for governmental support for their business interests. In Mozes’s case, he asked Netanyahu to act against Israel Hayom, Yediot’s primary competitor. In Elovitch’s case, Netanyahu allegedly agreed to provide Bezeq/Yes with regulatory and tax breaks in exchange for supportive coverage in Walla.

There are two problems with these allegations. First, Yediot’s implacably hostile coverage of Netanyahu never improved. And, as an inquiry at Mida website this week demonstrated, like Yediot, Walla’s coverage of Netanyahu is relentlessly negative.

Investigations 2000 and 4000 are predicated on a draconian premise that rejects the very notion of freedom of speech and expression. The premise is that any time a reporter writes about a public figure, he is offering that public figure a bribe. His expectation in writing his article is that at some point, the politician will pay him back for his work.

Conversely, if a reporter writes negatively about a public figure, he is extorting him. Under this premise, Mozes and Elovitch gave Netanyahu bad coverage because that gave them a bargaining chip against him. In exchange for better coverage, they could expect him to do something for them.

In other words, these probes assume that all reporting is inherently corrupt and criminal.

All of the police probes suffer from another problem – they all scream out selective law enforcement.

As Zippori notes, whereas Case 4000 is premised on the notion that a pro-business regulatory environment is inherently criminal, investigators never probed an even larger tax break the Communications Ministry conferred on Yes’s top competitor, the HOT cable television provider.

According to Zippori, HOT received tax breaks totaling more than a billion shekels over several years. It received these tax breaks despite the fact that it failed to abide by its obligation to provide cable service throughout Israel.

During the period HOT received the tax breaks, Mozes and his partner Eliezer Fishman were major shareholders in the company. The tax breaks continued when Mozes’s close friend Patrick Drahi bought their shares.

In other words, Netanyahu and Filber are being treated like Al Capone for giving standard tax breaks to Yes, which is owned by his friend Elovitch. Fliber’s predecessor Avi Berger gave tax breaks to Netanyahu’s nemesis Mozes, and the media is treating him like a principled professional.
This brings us back to Case 2000. Netanyahu is accused of accepting a bribe of good coverage from Mozes and in exchange working to curtail the operations of Israel Hayom, Mozes’s chief competitor. Never mind that Netanyahu did no such thing, and preferred to bring down his own government in 2014 rather than harm Israel Hayom.

Forty-three members of Knesset voted in favor of the “Israel Hayom bill” that would have shut down Mozes’s competitor. They are not under investigation.

Lapid, the star witness against Netanyahu in the Milchan law probe, met twice with his old friend Milchan to discuss the law during his tenure as finance minister. Lapid never reported his meetings.

And he’s the star witness against Netanyahu, not the subject of a probe.

Lapid’s Yesh Atid party went out of its way to advance Mozes’s financial interests. Not only did more than half of Yesh Atid lawmakers vote for the “Israel Hayom bill.” Lapid’s ministers – then-education minister Shai Piron, then-minister of social affairs Meir Cohen and then-science minister Yaakov Peri, paid Yediot millions of shekels from their ministries’ budgets for advertising.

And they all received fantastic coverage.

And none of them is under investigation.

The final problem with the investigations of Netanyahu is that as we saw this week, the police’s openly obsessive desire to “get” Bibi is corrupting the law enforcement and judicial community.

This week Channel 10 published text messages sent between magistrate’s court judge Ronit Poznansky-Katz and Israel Securities Authority investigator Eran Shaham-Shavit. In their text exchange, the two discussed and agreed on the length of continued confinement of suspects detained in Case 4000.

It is possible to read their exchange, in which they discuss the police investigators’ obsession with keeping the suspects remanded to jail, as friendly banter. It is also possible to interpret their text exchanges more critically. Shaham-Shavit wrote: Police investigators “almost beat me up or arrested me.” He angered them because he supported releasing the suspects earlier than the police investigators did. Poznansky-Katz’s responded sympathetically, “I think there is nothing scarier than that.”

It’s easy to read this as two colleagues commiserating about out of control police investigators ready to run over anyone who stands between them and their prey – Prime Minister Netanyahu.

However you interpret their exchange, the fact is that their messages were a crime. They coordinated Poznansky-Katz’s rulings before the defendants were allowed to present their cases. Yet, whereas Netanyahu’s advisers and friends are treated like mafia bosses for advancing legal policies, Poznansky-Katz and Shaham-Shavit were let off with administrative slaps on their wrists.
And we’re supposed to believe in the justice system.

It is easy to get swept away in the flood of prejudicial leaks and biased reporting that have already indicted, tried and pronounced Netanyahu’s guilt. But when you analyze the actual cases being assembled against him, it becomes clear that not only is there nothing there, these probes themselves represent an unprecedented assault on the basic norms of Israel.

http://www.CarolineGlick.com