Making Sense of Israel’s Political Upheaval

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Gregg Roman, director of the Middle East Forum, briefed the Middle East Forum in a conference call on April 3, 2018.

Netanyahu’s lingering police investigations have left the prime minister with no reliable coalition allies and made it difficult for him to resolve key issues before next year’s general elections as he puts the stability of his government ahead of problem solving. Yet it is difficult to see how this will harm his immediate reelection prospects. Ultimately, the Israeli voter’s priority centers on security and the economy - fields where Netanyahu has a marked edge over current challengers - with regional and international developments, another Netanyahu forte, strongly influencing poll results.

A conflagration along Israel’s northern border, for example, will largely reduce domestic political considerations given the public’s need for a seasoned center-right leadership with a proven record on security and strategic affairs. Likewise, Netanyahu’s position vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority has been substantially strengthened by Mahmoud Abbas’s frontal confrontation with the Trump administration, on the one hand, and the evolving strategic alliance between Israel and the Sunni Arab states vis-à-vis the Iranian threat, on the other. This alliance has received a major boost by President Trump’s regional strategy, which, in sharp contrast to that of his predecessor’s appeasement of implacable U.S. enemies at the expense of longstanding allies, seeks to create a common denominator among America’s regional allies that will allow them to contain Tehran’s hegemonic drive and broker Palestinian-Israeli peace.

Netanyahu’s deft handling of Israel’s regional and global affairs, notably the intensification of bilateral relations with India and China and the establishment of a strategic dialogue with Moscow over the hazardously complex Syrian situation, may provide a counterweight to his investigatory woes in any future elections. Whether this will allow him to survive an attorney general’s indictment is far less certain.

Summary accounts by Marilyn Stern, Communications Coordinator for the Middle East Forum

Gregg Roman functions as the chief operations officer for the Forum, responsible for day-to-day management, communications, and financial resource development. Mr. Roman previously served as director of the Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. In 2014, he was named one of the ten most inspiring global Jewish leaders by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He previously served as the political advisor to the deputy foreign minister of Israel and worked for the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Mr. Roman is a frequent speaker at venues around the world, often appears on television, and has written for the Hill, the Forward, the Albany Times-Union, and other publications. He attended American University in Washington, D.C., and the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel, where he studied national security studies and political communications.
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