Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein says that views on Israeli sovereignty are changing and the idea of a Palestinian state is looking more and more like a pipe dream, and he calls former IDF Chief Benny Gantz’s foray into politics “unparalleled arrogance.”
Yuli Edelstein has been at the top of Israeli politics for years now, so long that sometimes it seems as if the truly difficult period of his life – as a Prisoner of Zion in a Soviet gulag – is almost forgotten. But Edelstein, a senior member in the Likud party and Knesset speaker for the past five years, was and remains a man of principle. Since the Yisrael BaAliyah party merged with Likud in 2003, Edelstein has not budged from his nationalist stances or abandoned the party like some others have.
Now, heading into a general election, he is taking his nationalist views one step further.
“The 21st Knesset will be the one to start applying Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” he tells Israel Hayom, voicing a political opinion that no other Israeli figure of his status has yet.
“That’s my assessment, and I at least will do everything in my power so that will happen,” he says.
Q: What territory? To what extent?
“Either something to ‘start with,’ like Maaleh Adumim or Gush Etzion, or all of Area C, or Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. There [would be] a legal debate about that. There will be bills, maybe more than one, but the in the next Knesset it will be possible to move on to practical steps. There will be a lot of arguments about what that actually means because it’s clear that no one wants to annex 2 million Palestinians. But the process will begin.”
Edelstein doesn’t shoot from the hip. As someone who helped strengthen the Knesset’s international activity and is personally in contact with a number of world leaders, he sees the idea of a Palestinian state collapsing, along with increasing openness to the prospect of Israeli sovereignty.
“In the past two or three years, the subject of a Palestinian state has not come in in any interview I’ve given to the foreign media, and even foreign leaders barely mention it. Sometimes one of the Europeans will – and even then it’s out of a sense of obligation. The penny is starting to drop, and the current government has played a part in that. Because like British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin said in 1947 – and no one ever suspected him of being a lover of the Zionist enterprise – ‘For the Jews, the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish state. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine.'”
No apartheid
Edelstein says that 10 years ago, when he was invited to a conference on the subject of Israeli sovereignty, he was afraid to take part lest it turn out to be a meeting of the “delusional.” Today, he says, it’s become a legitimate issue, almost a mainstream one.
“There were no phone calls from the Prime Minister’s Office saying it was a diplomatic problem,” he says.
Q: To the best of my knowledge, the prime minister opposes any application of sovereignty and the Trump administration is going to propose a Palestinian state as part of its “deal of the century.”
“We still don’t know what the [U.S.] plan entails, but I can tell you that Vice President Mike Pence was sitting in this room, and when he heard my position, he didn’t get up and storm out. Changes are taking place here, too, and the prime minister – who at one time might have had his back against the wall and needed to say ‘two states’ – stopped that a long time ago. I believe that through cooperation with him, the issue can be promoted.”
Q: If sovereignty is applied, what status will the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria have? They’ll call it apartheid.
“As someone who is familiar with South Africa and who has met with Nelson Mandela, I can tell you that there is not and will not be anything similar to what happened there, if only for the reason that those 2 million Palestinians have their own representative parliament. You can’t grab both ends of the stick. If there is self-rule, there is no apartheid.”
So Edelstein has an orderly plan for what needs to be done in the next Knesset, but it’s clear that he will need to navigate a few obstacles to implement it. The first is Netanyahu and the Likud winning the election, and the second is the role Edelstein will receive in the next government. However, he thinks that the investigations involving the prime minister or even a possible indictment will not change things.
“I think that an announcement of an indictment against Netanyahu won’t add or take away. It will cause some people to defend him, and it will put others off. Ultimately, it won’t affect much.”
Q: So where does the biggest threat to the Likud in the election lie?
“In complacency. All the polls show you at around 30 seats, and the next-largest party only has about half that or less. How do you campaign when there is no opponent? The second risk is a split vote. There are five or six parties in the national camp hovering around the minimum electoral threshold, and that means that at least some won’t make it. That could make it difficult for us to assemble a coalition.”
Q: What are you doing to prevent that?
“I’ve spoken with the heads of these parties and told them: ‘You’re drilling a hole in the boat and no one will benefit.’ As someone who comes from the religious-national sector and spent most of his life in the settlements, I can’t pick out the differences between these parties, even with a magnifying glass. If they don’t unite, they, their voters, and later on the entire country could suffer. According to the polls, one of these parties not passing the minimum threshold would give the other side an effective opposition bloc.”
Q: Why not bring New Right founders Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked into the Likud and solve at least one problem?
“The Likud’s collective memory is put off at the idea of party mergers. The merger with Yisrael Beytenu failed.”
Q: So the bottom line is that no one is taking responsibility. You [Likud] had bad experiences with mergers and they are running on their own.
“But a merger won’t help. Even if we brought everyone in and got 45 seats – then who would join us [in the government]?”
When Edelstein talks about complacency being the biggest danger to the Likud, it is impossible not to touch on the debut speech this week by someone who is shaping up to be Netanyahu’s main rival in the election – former IDF chief Benny Gantz.
“It’s unparalleled arrogance,” Edelstein says of Gantz’s entrée into politics.
“I’ve been in politics for 22 years and I’m telling you that it’s impossible to be prime minister without having cast a single vote in the Knesset. Gantz has contributed to the defense of the state for many years, but does that mean he knows how to run a government? Experience is vital component in politics and cannot be dismissed,” he says.
The matter of the investigations involving Netanyahu is taking center stage in the election campaign. I ask Edelstein whether he feels that Netanyahu is taking him and the rest of the senior Likud officials “hostage” by forcing them to defend him. After all, he is suspected of committing crimes.
“Politically, you could say we’re hostages, but you could also say that the prime minister, who brings the Likud votes and puts people in the Knesset, expects us to defend him when he’s in trouble. And there is trouble. Look, I’ve already said that he’s the only one who knows what takes place when he’s questioned.
“Based on what he knows, he feels attacked and persecuted, so you can’t expect him not to respond to the situation, especially when there is immense pressure on the attorney general [to indict] and he is being called Netanyahu’s ‘dishrag.'”
Faith in the justice system
Q: In light of all the scandals surrounding the justice system, do you have faith in it?
“I have faith, just like I wouldn’t want the Knesset to be judged based on one deviant MK. Just like not everyone in the 20th Knesset smuggled cell phones to terrorists, if it turns out that a judge was appointedthrough means I won’t mention, it doesn’t mean that all judges were appointed that way.
“Sometimes we confuse the justice system with the prosecution or the police. There are different systems, and it’s no coincidence that the judicial system is the one that has the final word. Until it decides otherwise, a person is innocent.”
Q: Some claim that, given the suspicions against him, Netanyahu should resign, like former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did.
“True. People also contact me and say that as Knesset speaker, I must call on Netanyahu to resign, etc. Among other reasons, I’m not doing that because I remember my late friend, former Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman. There were allegations against him, and he resigned. But then, all of a sudden, he was exonerated in a trial and he couldn’t go back to being justice minister because someone else had the portfolio. He was honest and he punished himself, but maybe he punished all of us because, as a brilliant legal mind, he could have started the reforms the justice system needs back in 1996 and we’d all be better off today.”
Q: Netanyahu should stay in his position as stated in law until there is a final decision?
“At the moment, we don’t know anything. Will there be a hearing? Will there be an indictment? How serious would it be? On what counts? We don’t know anything. So my answer is, I don’t know. We don’t know what is actually going on. But to tell the prime minister he has to quit goes against every principle.”
Q: Let’s talk about what’s happening in the Likud. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan has launched a campaign praising you, his friends in the top ranks of the party. Whom do you want to praise?
“My aides tell me that when I meet with members of the movement, I talk too much about other people and not enough about myself. But what is true is that our competition in the Likud is tough because I’m up against people who were excellent ministers, who did good work, who hold the right positions, and that’s nice.”
Q: You’ve been involved in confrontations with the prime minister, Culture Minister Miri Regev, and of course, MK Oren Hazan.
“There really was a conflict with Netanyahu and Regev about the torch-lighting ceremony [on Independence Day eve]. I don’t regret my position, which was one of principle and which I presented as Knesset speaker. We had differences of opinion, but it’s a fact that I have good relations with them both.”
Q: You say that the top of the Likud is in good shape but there is a lot of criticism about the quality of some of the Likud MKs in the outgoing Knesset.
“With all the criticism of the primaries method, the people at the top of the Likud today came up through the ranks. But in every meeting, I tell members to take care that there are zero ‘accidents’ on the list. … The person at No. 34 [on the Likud list] is now serving in the Knesset. Therefore, no spots above the 50th can be dismissed as ‘unrealistic.'”
Q: Would you like to return to the cabinet, or stay on as Knesset speaker?
“I think I still have a lot of challenges here in the Knesset. We’ve gotten plenty done over the years, but I admit that most of the time I was forced to act like a kindergarten teacher. So I hope that I’ll be given the job again.”
Some evidence of Israeli appeasement of Arab interests even inside Jerusalem, reported in Ynetnews:
I don’t doubt Edelstein’s sincerity. But the overwhelming majority in the Knesset, as well as Netanyahu and most Likud MKs, believe this would be too risky a move. Bennett has been advocating something along these lines for years, but although he has been a member of the Cabinet, Bibi and the majority of Cabinet officials have failed to support his proposal. In any case, the Attorney General and the Supremes, who have the real power in their hands, not the Knesset would immediately veto any such law even if the Knesset passed it.
Only if the right is running the government not going to happen if Ganz/Lapid are in charge. Even though even they might apply Israeli Civil Law to the Blocks, especially if they end up in a coalition with the Likud. This would be a rationale for the Likud to join a Ganz lead government.