Biden called for ceasefire to protect Hamas – Israelis are Pissed.

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1. The three men who wrote the column for Politico are all former Obama officials who are undoubtedly close to the Biden adninistration and the dems in Congress. A few take-aways from their commentary:

   The Biden administration intends to make a deal with Iran whether Israel likes it or not.

   The “progressive” Democrats are determined to halt arms sales to Israel, including the Iron Dome money, and the Biden administration won’t work too hard to peruade the congressional dems to vote this Israeli aid money.

   While the Biden administration believes that Bennett is just as “radical” as Netanyahu in his miltancy against Iran and the Palestinian terrorists, he is also more “idealistic” than Netanyahu and less politically experienced–meaning they think they can manipulate him.

   THey are hoping that the “progressives” in the Bennett government will “moderate” his views and persuade him to be more accepting of the iran deal.

2. This is what the Biden administration expects/hopes for from the Bennet/Lapid government:

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   POLITICO

   Magazine
   OPINION | WASHINGTON AND THE WORLD
   Netanyahu’s On the Way Out. Here’s What Biden Can Expect Next.
   With a new Israeli government, the U.S. president has an opening on Iran and a rare chance to rebuild frayed ties with an ally. But he can’t count on it to last.
   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and Israeli Minister of Education Naftali Bennett attend the weekly cabinet meeting at the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016.
   Naftali Bennett (left) and Benjamin Netanyahu (right), pictured at the Israeli prime minister’s office in Jerusalem in 2016. | Abir Sultan/Pool via AP

   By DANIEL C. KURTZER, AARON DAVID MILLER and STEVEN N. SIMON
   06/02/2021 06:56 PM EDT
   Daniel C. Kurtzer is former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and former U.S. ambassador to Israel and S. Daniel Abraham professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.
   Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations.
   Steven N. Simon is professor in the practice of international relations at Colby College and a senior analyst at the Quincy Institute and has previously served on the U.S. National Security Council and in the Department of State.
   For the first time in more than a decade, it looks as though Benjamin Netanyahu will soon be out of power in Israel. What many assumed would play to the longtime prime minister’s advantage and scuttle efforts to replace him — the recent mini-war with Hamas — has instead led to one of the most surprising turns in Israeli politics in years.

   Just before midnight Israel time on Wednesday, Yesh Atid party head Yair Lapid informed Israel’s president that he had formed a coalition comprised of eight parties — including, for the first time, an Arab-Israeli party. According to the coalition agreement, Naftali Bennett of the Yamina party will serve first as prime minister, followed by Lapid in 2023. The next step is for the Knesset to vote to approve the deal, and there are still some outstanding questions remaining. But barring any unforeseen developments, Netanyahu’s 12-year tenure will end within a fortnight.

   The new government will be a welcome respite for a U.S. president busy with domestic politics and eager to avoid a fight with Israel. The new prime minister, the right-wing Bennett, will be preoccupied with managing an unwieldy coalition. He’s likely to lower the temperature with Washington, temporarily subvert Netanyahu’s obsession with blocking the Iran nuclear accord, and try to refrain from provocative actions toward Palestinians certain to rile his centrist and left-wing partners and collapse the fragile government.

   Biden’s team should anticipate a few months of calm on the Palestinian issue and the Iran nuclear deal — thanks as much to gridlock in the Knesset as to Jerusalem’s desire to smooth relations with Washington. But they shouldn’t forget that Bennett is an ideologue farther to the right than Netanyahu. The new prime minister’s hardline credentials and the machinations of right-wing members of his coalition are likely to become a problem at some point. There’s no trainwreck in store for Biden with Israel’s new government — but he shouldn’t expect a honeymoon, either.

   Netanyahu will essentially be replaced by a more extreme, though much less politically savvy, version of himself. At 49, an untested and ambitious Bennett — the first Orthodox prime minister and a former aide to Netanyahu — will have to keep his fervent annexationist convictions and implacable opposition to Palestinian statehood under control. His new coalition government will be weighed down and checked by opposing factions that may constrain — but not eliminate — the right-wing impulses of the prime minister and his conservative partners.

   Bennett’s left-wing partners and, most importantly, the centrist Lapid — to whom Bennett will hand off the prime minister post after two years — hold the key to his survival. And in a delicious irony given Bennett’s fervent nationalist views, so does a small Arab party, Ra’am. In return for promises of legislative and budget support, Ra’am will vote with the coalition in the event of no-confidence votes. It’s mutually assured destruction, Israeli-style. The government may well collapse at some point under its own weight — after all, the average length of Israeli governments is just under two years. But for now, two powerful incentives will hold it together: avoiding a fifth election and getting rid of Netanyahu.

   Bennett and Lapid, who for now will become foreign minister, will work hard to normalize ties with the Biden administration and with the American Jewish community. The two men, especially Lapid, will look to repair relations with Democrats even while maintaining the friendly ties with Republicans that Netanyahu preferred. This will be an increasingly tough balancing act as progressives within the Democratic Party push Biden to be tougher on Israel. Israel will also need to listen carefully to the complaints increasingly voiced even by mainstream Democrats. Both Israeli and American lawmakers will want a return to a more bipartisan relationship, but getting there won’t be easy. Republicans, for their part, will do whatever they can to prevent a rapprochement between their colleagues across the aisle and Bennett’s government. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.-S.C.) is reportedly returning from Israel with a request for a billion dollars in emergency military assistance, which is likely to be scrutinized intensely by the progressive Democrats who recently sought to block an arms sale to Israel.

   The new Israeli coalition will also face the intriguing challenge of rebuilding strong ties with the American Jewish community. On this count, it will enter office with one huge asset: the absence of the ultra-Orthodox parties in the coalition. Bennett will thus be free to loosen somewhat the ultra-Orthodox parties’ control over many aspects of personal status in Jewish life, such as marriage and divorce, conversion and the like. This will appeal to the majority of American Jews in the Conservative and Reform movements.

   On the Palestinian issue, Bennett is more ideologically rigid than Netanyahu. He will need to continue some settlement activity in the West Bank — enough to maintain support within his own Yamina party and Gideon Saar’s New Hope party, but not so much as to arouse the anger of the left. In particular, Bennett’s freedom of maneuver will be severely constrained by the presence in the coalition of the Labor Party and Meretz, two parties committed to the two-state solution and opposed to settlements and annexation.

   Bennett will also be unable to stray too far to the right given the need to retain the support of Mansour Abbas’ Islamist Ra’am party. Ra’am’s tacit support will be necessary to keep the coalition together. It is not altogether clear whether Bennett and the left can successfully navigate this fine line, especially if the extreme right seeks to provoke Palestinians, or if Hamas decides to return to confrontation with Israel.

   This standoff on peace process issues might even usher in a period of calm on the ground, especially in Gaza. The Israeli left has complained that Netanyahu’s policies have strengthened Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority. The new coalition could reverse Netanyahu’s policies, which resulted in allowing Qatar to funnel cash to Hamas, and move instead toward a more structured approach in line with the policies and priorities of the international donor community. As difficult as the issue of Gaza reconstruction is, the new government’s policy in the West Bank — where Bennett is likely to increase settlement activity — is a far bigger threat to the fragile coalition.

   On the Iran nuclear accord, the new government is likely to tread carefully to avoid antagonizing the Biden administration. For weeks, American negotiators have been working in Vienna — indirectly through the Europeans — to revive the deal and restore limits on Iran’s nuclear program. Had Netanyahu remained in power, this might have been the one issue that turned existing U.S.-Israel tensions into a full-blown crisis. Netanyahu said recently that stopping Iran from becoming a nuclear power was vital even if it came at expense of friction with Washington.

   Members of the incoming coalition understand this well. Some might agree with Netanyahu that American Jewish critics of Israel will disappear in a generation or two “at most” and with Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s protégé and former ambassador to the United States, who recently argued that the strong, reliable support of Evangelicals, not Jews, was vital to the U.S.-Israel relationship. Other Israeli lawmakers, though, understand that American politics are too fluid for such simplistic and complacent assessments. They also understand, as illustrated by a hot mic incident revealing Netanyahu’s prior attempt to get approval for a strike on Iran, the profound risks of a hard-line stance on Iran, both for the relationship with the United States and, ultimately, for Israel’s position as a power player within the region.

   Therefore, even though Bennett himself will remain hawkish on Iran, the new governing coalition will probably give Biden the time and space to stitch up a tattered nuclear deal and nudge Iran back toward compliance. As a practical matter, this will entail less lobbying against the deal in Congress, public statements indicating that Israel is prepared to give Biden, an old friend, the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps suspending for now Israeli attacks on Iranian soil, such as assassinations of scientists. This approach would carry relatively little risk for the new government, since negotiations on the new deal might fall apart anyway.

   But make no mistake: This issue is not going away. Years of Netanyahu’s vilification of the Iran deal have seduced Israelis across the political spectrum into believing there remains a better deal to be had. Many Israelis argue that it’s not just Iran’s nuclear ambitions that are so dangerous, but also its missile development and malign activities in regional conflicts. For many, therefore, including Bennett, a nuclear deal — even one that stripped Iran of its right to enrichment forever — would simply not be enough. The period of calm Biden gets will be fleeting and uncertain, especially with Netanyahu leading the opposition and enjoying a bully pulpit in the Knesset and the media.

   Indeed, Netanyahu will not simply disappear into an Israeli Mar-a-Lago. He will go into the opposition, where he’ll preside over the largest and most coherent political party in the country with a band of still-loyal followers. Netanyahu’s trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust will continue, most likely for months, all while he seeks to pressure right-wing members of the new government and works to secure its collapse. If and when it does, Netanyahu — still the most dominant and skilled politician in a country where 72 percent voted for right-wing parties in the most recent election — may be well-positioned to pick up the pieces.

   Biden will catch a break with a less predatory and manipulative prime minister who won’t play to a Republican and evangelical base, and who is unlikely to openly oppose America’s Iran policy or engage in obvious provocations. Still, the contradictions that lie ahead are disorienting: an Israeli prime minister with anti-Palestinian convictions who will need to curb his own views to maintain coalition stability, and an Israeli government that wants to rebuild ties to a U.S. administration seeking an Iran deal that Israel opposes.
   Biden should enjoy the respite he’s been given. Clashes between Washington and Jerusalem over the peace process and Iran will continue. The administration should not let these issues divert from its focus on domestic priorities, but events in the Middle East may not allow Biden to retain a relatively aloof stance. Indeed, the recent Israeli-Palestinian crisis — and the new prospect of an even harder-line prime minister — should remind the administration that while this issue may not be a priority, the region is often like the Hotel California: You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.
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   FILED UNDER: OPINION, JOE BIDEN, JOE BIDEN 2020, ISRAEL, ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT, BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, WASHINGTON AND THE WORLD

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3. Israel’s Defense: Without and within
   The man who brought Israel’s security complex to unbelievable technological heights was killed in a primitive attack:by Arab rioters.

   Sivan Rahav-Meir , Jun 09 , 2021 11:52 AM

   Translation by Yehoshua Siskin

   Avi Har-Even of blessed memory was a recipient of the Israel Defense Prize. He received it for innovations that may not be publicized due to national security concerns.

   He was also the head of the Israeli Space Agency, a colonel in the IDF, and a leader in Israel’s aerospace industry. He dealt with satellites and their advanced instrumentation and spearheaded research and development. In so doing, he saved the lives of many who are not even aware of it.

   But he could not save his own life. The same person who brought Israel’s security complex to unbelievable technological heights was killed in the most primitive attack: Arab rioters threw a firebomb at a hotel in Akko while he was sleeping there. The 84-year-old Avi was seriously injured and died two evenings ago from his wounds.

   Sophisticated weaponry is important, but Israel — a champion in outer space research — sometimes forgets what’s happening in our inner world, right here in Akko and Lod, for example.

   On Shabbat we read about an important principle in the weekly Torah portion. When the ten spies returned from their excursion to the Land of Israel, they said this about their encounter with the local residents: “We were as grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we were in theirs.” Since we saw ourselves as weak on the inside, so they saw us as weak on the outside.

   This is true in our personal lives (a low self-image will influence the manner in which others see us), and also in the life of our nation. Self-confidence is crucial. Stubborn insistence on following the law and an understanding of what we are doing here are critical. Otherwise, we will be seen as “grasshoppers,” as people who may be easily attacked, heaven forbid.

   To the memory of Avi Har-Even, Israel Defense Prize recipient, with hopes for improvements in Israel’s defense.

   https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/543327

4. This is from Arutz Sheva, concerning the New York “Slimes” portrayal of the Israelis as heartless murderers. One of Vic Rosenthals best columns.

   Doing the Math about Gazan casualties
   According to the NY TImes, over 60 children under18 were killed in Gaza. Except the numbers and featured photos make no sense. Op-ed.

   Victor Rosenthal
   “They were only children,” wept the New York Times, in its heartrending appeal for sympathy for Gazans, supposedly under “indiscriminate and disproportionate” bombardment by the IDF.

   Is it true that Israel negligently murdered children (or anyone) in its response to rocket attacks from Gaza? Let’s look back at the numbers, following the intrepid Nevet Basker.

   Some 4,350 rockets were launched by Hamas and other terrorist factions in Gaza at cities and towns in Israel. Of these, about 1,400 were intercepted by Iron Dome. 680 of them fell short, and landed in Gaza.

   Iron Dome only intercepts rockets that have a chance of hitting populated areas, and it had a 90% success rate in downing those. 1,400 is 90% of 1555, so that means that some 155 of Hamas’ rockets landed in populated areas of Israel.

   These 155 rockets, which are designed to spray shrapnel over a wide area to kill and injure people, caused 12 fatalities in Israel.

   Now keep in mind that Israel has bomb shelters for civilians (in Gaza, only soldiers and bombs have shelters and not for lack of money to build them) and an elaborate fine-grained warning system. Keep in mind that military targets in Gaza, including rocket launchers, are deliberately located in civilian areas.

   How many Gazans were killed or maimed by those 680 rockets that fell short?

   Even if we ignore the better protection enjoyed by Israelis, proportionately we should expect about 52 deaths in Gaza from their own rockets. I’m going to reduce that number to 30, because, despite what anti-Israel people like to say, Gaza is not “the most densely populated place on earth,” and there are empty places for rockets to land.

   According to Hamas, there were a total of 256 Gazans killed. The IDF estimates that it killed 225 fighters. Let’s give Hamas the benefit of the doubt and accept its number. And just to be even more generous, let’s say the IDF exaggerated a bit and only 200 of the dead were Hamas fighters.

   That leaves 56 civilian casualties. At the very least 30 of them were killed by the “friendly” fire of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, leaving 26 that can be attributed to the IDF’s bombing of military targets.

   So here is a 10-day air campaign in a dense urban environment – which I remind you was undertaken in self-defense, after Israel was attacked, in which there were only 26 civilian casualties as a result.

   This is a record that no other military force in history, even the most advanced Western armies, can match.

   “Indiscriminate and disproportionate?” I think not.

   Reposted with permission from Abuyehuda.com

   Victor Rosenthal blogs at Abu Yehuda, a project he started after 26 years in California (and 8 years as the author of FresnoZionism.org),upon his return to Israel in August, 2014. The theme of the blog is the Jewish State, and the struggle to keep it in a very unfriendly world. Victor explains: “I can’t be quiet in the face of the continuous barrage of anti-Israel and antisemitic material in so much of the media. Somehow the anti-Zionists have been successful in turning the truth upside down, using concepts like self-determination and human rights — concepts which truly characterize Zionism as I understand it — to portray Israel and Zionism as racist and inhumane. The lies that are told about Israel, and often believed by well-meaning but poorly informed people, do not describe the Israel I know. And the true intentions of Israel’s enemies must be made manifest. I want to set things straight. It’s a compulsion.”