There is no running away from it, no matter how hard he tries. That is the lesson Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has learned over the last two-and-a-half months in office.
He can repeat all he wants that he will not meet or speak with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, but reality is stronger than ideological aspirations. When you are prime minister, past comments that compared the Palestinian conflict to a nuisance, or a “piece of shrapnel in the rear end,” no longer work.
And based on the 10-week flurry of diplomatic activity all aimed at resolving issues related to the Palestinians, this change in Bennett is noticeable.
In his first few days in office, the prime minister flew to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah. On Monday, he was in Sharm e-Sheikh for meetings with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi – the first public visit of an Israeli leader in Egypt in a decade.
A few weeks earlier, as Bennett landed back in Israel from meeting President Joe Biden in Washington, Defense Minister Benny Gantz drove to Ramallah to meet with Abbas. Hardly a coincidence.
President Isaac Herzog has also been to Jordan for talks with Abdullah, and has spoken a number of times on the phone with Abbas .
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has visited Morocco and Abu Dhabi, and earlier this week unveiled a new plan to upgrade economic infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, which he said had been coordinated with Bennett as a way to stave off a future conflict.
For a government that has repeatedly stated that it does not plan on doing much with the Palestinians, this sure does give off a different impression.
Officials in the Yamina Party have taken notice, and while Bennett does not have a right-wing political base right now that he needs to worry about losing – they have mostly left him already – he is thinking of ways to try to balance out this impression and regain his right-wing credentials.
Expect, for example, that his speech later this month at the UN General Assembly will barely mention the Palestinians, if at all.
But even as he claims that he will not meet with someone who is pursuing IDF soldiers at the International Criminal Court, it does not mean that Bennett is not working on Palestinian issues. He might not say it, but everyone he meets does.
He met with Biden last month, who asked Bennett to allow the reopening of an American consulate in Jerusalem to service the Palestinian Authority. When he met a few days later in Jerusalem with a group of leading Democratic senators, they brought up the issue too.
Bennett’s office played up the discussion he had with Sisi about Gaza, the Israeli captives being held by Hamas, and ways to advance economic trade. In a video put out by the Egyptian president’s office though, Sisi is heard saying that he spoke with Bennett about regional peace “despite possible disagreements.”
And then there was Lapid’s speech, in which the foreign minister laid out a plan (which I have written about numerous times in recent years) of flipping the paradigm of how Israel looks at the Gaza Strip. He spoke about repairing Gaza’s electrical grid, connecting the gas system, building a water desalination plant, improving healthcare, and rebuilding housing and transportation infrastructure. In exchange, Lapid said, Hamas would need to commit to a long-term quiet.
It was a breath of fresh air. After 16 years of trying the same thing and ending up in the same place, here was the most senior minister in Israel offering an alternative to more rounds of violence.
Will it work? That is unclear, and with both IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi and Shin Bet director Nadav Argaman predicting that Hamas will not agree to a ceasefire in exchange for just economic aid, the chances are slim.
While this might be true, Israel can’t really know without trying. What we already know is that the current approach to Gaza is not working. When IDF generals claimed after the last war in May that Israel might have achieved five years of quiet, they were either naïve or caught up in an intelligence misconception. Today, they are openly talking about a new and imminent large-scale operation.
Bennett is also learning that wishful thinking is not a strategy. He originally said upon becoming prime minister that he would focus on domestic matters: combating corona and helping to rehabilitate the economy, hammered by three lockdowns.
He has done a commendable job with the rollout of the third vaccine – almost three million Israelis have already received the booster – and a state budget is finally moving through the legislative process. And while all that is impressive, it does not sum up being prime minister.
What Bennett is learning is what many right-wing Israelis have preferred to ignore: the Palestinians are here, just a few minutes’ drive from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They are not going anywhere, and if not engaged with and spoken to, the situation will not get any better.
While the government can pretend that it is working to “shrink the conflict,” that is not a long-term strategy. Shrinking something doesn’t make it go away. And sometimes, like with clothes, it just makes things even more uncomfortable.
And while that approach might get Israel through the month or even the year, it does not solve the long-term problems that will continue to fester within Israeli society.
Tiptoeing around the Palestinian issue might be tempting, but in the long-term, it will not work. Bennett is learning this in his diplomatic meetings: the Palestinian issue needs managing.
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On Tuesday, we finally received the WhatsApp. After seven days of school, our sixth-grader was on her way to quarantine. A classmate was not feeling well and had tested positive on a rapid test for corona. He had gone that morning to take a PCR and was waiting for the result.
The WhatsApp group broke out in response. Parents wanted to know what to do. Should they already take their children now for a PCR test, or first wait for the result of the potentially sick classmate? (It came back positive on Wednesday). Should the kids continue going to school, or should classes move to Zoom?
This is a scenario that is repeating itself daily across the country. Over 150,000 children are currently in home quarantine instead of being in school. Around 40,000 are children who are sick with COVID, and the remaining 110,000 – like my daughter – are in quarantine after being exposed to a sick classmate.
I’m lucky. My daughter is in sixth grade and can remain alone at home most of the day. She doesn’t need a parent with her at all times. Other families are not as fortunate. When younger kids are sent to quarantine, parents need to take a week off from work because they can’t leave the children alone.
This doesn’t just lead to frustration; it causes damage. Kids miss school, they are stuck at home – and their parents? Well, ask them. They will surely tell you how much fun it is being stuck at home and missing a week of work.
What is happening, as Seth Frantzman wrote in these pages last week, is that children are being hit with the burden of the pandemic. Minors under the age of 12 cannot get vaccinated, so they are ordered instead to take tests before they go anywhere, and automatically get sent to quarantine if they are exposed to someone who is sick.
In comparison, someone who is vaccinated does not need to do anything. They are encouraged to get tested, but otherwise, even if they are exposed to someone sick, they keep on with their regular routine.
This is not sustainable, neither for the harm it is causing children, nor for the load it is putting on parents who need to work.
I understand the concern. If a child who has been exposed does not quarantine, then that child could infect other children, who can then infect adults, parents and grandparents. This is a legitimate concern. But we also have to worry about the kids. Their lives have been torn apart over the last 18 months. Many have fallen behind, scholastically and socially.
There are alternatives. If a child is sick, why should the entire class quarantine for seven days? Why not send just the sick kid to quarantine, and test the remaining members of the class every day at school? If someone tests positive, they go home. If they test negative, they go to school.
The answer is that this could endanger unvaccinated parents and even vaccinated grandparents. That might be true, but if those parents are not getting vaccinated, that is not a reason to punish an entire class. And when it comes to grandparents, they will need to conduct a personal risk assessment. If their grandchild continues to go to school even after exposure, do they meet the child or not? That will make them consider their own vaccinations, and how and where they meet their grandchildren.
Is this perfect? Hardly. But it is time for the government to rethink its current strategy. Simply put, adults have a way out – they can get vaccinated. Children do not. Putting the burden on them is not only unfair, it is also detrimental to their development.
From the beginning, the management of corona has been about mitigating risks. No one who ventures outside can completely protect themselves. But they can take precautions. They can vaccinate, social distance, wear a mask, wash their hands. Children cannot do all that. It is time to consider them.