Saudi arabia. The naturalness with which the US president and prime minister spoke about normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia was astounding. As they themselves said, just a decade ago it seemed like science fiction. Now, according to a senior diplomatic source, there is a more than 50 percent chance that an agreement will be reached.
Such an agreement would be welcome, of course, but obliged to discuss its terms. Three of them will have no less dramatic implications for Israel's security. The first is Saudi Arabia's demand for a civilian nuclear program, which could open the door to accelerated nuclearization of the region. The second is its demand for a dramatic upgrade in its offensive and defensive military capabilities, in a way that would endanger the IDF's qualitative advantage. The third is the demand for a Saudi-American defense alliance, which also has immediate implications for Israel.
Each of these topics is a whole world. In the meantime, discussions are taking place in limited and closed forums, far from the public eye. Only a year ago, under another government, there was a heated public debate here on a much more trivial issue – the gas agreement with Lebanon. Members of the current government, then in opposition, drank the blood with straws to the government for endangering Israel's security. The discussion then was appropriate, and at the end a decision was made. It is necessary to hold such a discussion even now, before making a decision, in order to make sure that everything is known and on the table.
The agreement with Saudi Arabia will have many virtues: political, economic, security, and religious. But there will also be quite a few risks in it, which cannot be eliminated with beautiful words and glittering ceremonies. Benjamin Netanyahu has a problematic history when it comes to concealing vital information from the public: Israel's agreement to sell advanced submarines to Egypt and agreement to sell F-35 fighter jets to the UAE are just two examples, given while compartmentalizing and misleading the defense establishment.
Netanyahu sounded optimistic this week about the possibility of quadrupling the circle: reaching an agreement, guaranteeing Israel's security, bridging the Palestinian issue and preserving the current government. Time will tell if he was right, but it won't come for free. Israel will have to pay a price, and the Israeli public deserves to know in advance what it is.
Sticks and carrots
Judea and Samaria. Make no mistake: even an agreement with Saudi Arabia will not eliminate the Palestinian problem. The West Bank and Gaza will remain with us forever, with all their problems that lie before us. The world was and will remain indifferent, leaving Israel to cope alone. The Saudis might throw a bone, but not much else. There will be many in the current government celebrating. Here, the Palestinians don't even care about the Arabs who have always fought for them. To a large extent, this was also true in the past: dealing with the Palestinian issue allowed governments in the region to polish their consciences, and nothing more. But for the Palestinians themselves, it gave a glimmer of hope that they are not alone. Now, if they are finally abandoned, they will look for the solution for themselves.
You can't claim that Israel is the most moral country in the world, and then sponsor the murderer of innocents. It is impossible to side with harsh interrogations of terrorists, and then oppose them when they are used against Jewish murderers
At other times, it might have been an opening for a different, better future, in which all sides would come down from the tree and talk and mean it. This is not the case now. The Palestinians have made every possible mistake in recent decades and have honestly earned their suspicion. Israel has also made it clear in every way that it has no interest in resolving the situation, but only in managing it. This is a recipe for trouble, especially when the PA is weak and on the eve of a change of leadership, and against the background Hamas and Iran are doing everything possible to set the area on fire.
In this situation, wise and prudent leadership is required, which will know how to calm the area with a combination of sticks and carrots. The presence of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in the government ensures that the opposite will happen: the head may be in Riyadh, but the legs will be firmly entrenched in the bleeding refugee camps of Jenin and Nablus.
Ben Ulliel. Under the auspices of these two ministers, Limor Sun Har Melech entered the Knesset. This week she used the words "holy righteous" to refer to Amiram Ben Uliel, who murdered the Dawabsheh family in their sleep with a Molotov cocktail he threw at their home in the village of Duma in Samaria. Sun Har Melech is not the first to speak out on the subject, but she has gone further than everyone else by turning a heinous murderer into a role model.
It is customary not to judge bereaved families for what they have said, but Sun Har Melech - a bereaved wife - has excluded herself from this rule twice. Once when elected to the Knesset: An elected official has a different duty than a private citizen. The second time is more important: it violated almost every possible convention, and mainly (as Minister Moshe Arbel described well) skipped lightly over the sixth commandment – "Thou shalt not kill."
It is impossible to claim that Israel is the most moral country in the world and sponsor the murderer of innocents. It is impossible to side with harsh interrogations of terrorists who are sentenced to multiple life sentences, and then argue against the same investigations and prison sentences when they are used against Jewish murderers. Thus Sun Har Melech provides free ammunition to Israel-haters.
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Sun Har Melech alone doesn't really matter: it's mostly evidence of the trolling Israel is going through. But the subject is worth mentioning, because there are those who may be tempted to believe that Ben Uliel is innocent. For their sake, it is worth mentioning that he was convicted and his appeal rejected (it is worth reading the words of conservative judge Yosef Elron), among other things because he knew how to provide in his interrogation – not the one in which "interrogation permits" were used against him – substantiated details that were not even known to his interrogators.
Ben Uliel deserves to spend his entire life in prison, just like any other terrorist. The conditions of his imprisonment, however, need to change. There is no reason for him to continue to sit in solitary confinement, and the claim that he is still dangerous does not hold water. But Ben-Uliel may discover that even in prison, few, if any, would want his company: prisoners in the Torah wing also have red lines.
Women fighters. On other, less turbulent days, the decision to open Sayeret Matkal and other units to women's service would have sparked a much more heated debate. Right-wing circles would no doubt charge at her with pitchforks, claiming that she is further proof of the penetration of dangerous progressive processes into the ranks of the IDF.
It is doubtful whether this is the case, but the criticism deserves discussion. The IDF's decision certainly stemmed from the fear of the High Court of Justice and the fear that the Alice Miller precedent would be repeated. The army preferred to act on their own, before receiving a much more sweeping directive. In this way, they were also able to qualify the decision by meeting equal conditions and a sufficient number of women to enable the process to advance.
The IDF will be required to abide by the rules it has set, and not cut corners. His critics will be required to examine the issue as pertinently as they can. This is difficult to do when it comes to special operations, which by their nature are kept secret. Nonetheless, within the framework possible, it is worth mentioning that women have been serving as combatants in the Mossad and the Shin Bet for decades, and that the issue has also been examined in the past in the Sayeret Matkal – including a recommendation by the unit's former commander and deputy (attached to the petition to the High Court of Justice) that this is possible and desirable, and even opens up other diverse possibilities for action.
Not many years ago, there was also sweeping opposition to the inclusion of women in the air defense, border defense, border police, and home front command systems. Today they constitute 50 percent of all the fighters in these formations, and without them, the defense of the state will be significantly weakened. Anyone who complains about this is welcome to suggest an alternative. Given the sweeping exemption for Haredim and Arabs, it is advisable not to attack those who serve and contribute, but to say to them: "Thank you."
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