Israel’s Gantz Tests Netanyahu Partnership in Washington

Benny Gantz speaks at the announcement of former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot's election bid in Ramat Gan, Israel, on Aug. 14, 2022. (AP)
Benny Gantz speaks at the announcement of former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot's election bid in Ramat Gan, Israel, on Aug. 14, 2022. (AP)
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Israel’s Gantz Tests Netanyahu Partnership in Washington

Benny Gantz speaks at the announcement of former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot's election bid in Ramat Gan, Israel, on Aug. 14, 2022. (AP)
Benny Gantz speaks at the announcement of former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot's election bid in Ramat Gan, Israel, on Aug. 14, 2022. (AP)

Benny Gantz, the Israeli war cabinet member visiting Washington this week, tells a story of how his mother, a Holocaust survivor, once had an operation in Germany performed by a Palestinian doctor from Gaza.

The story encapsulates the hope for reconciliation that motivates optimists in the Middle East but which has been cruelly tested by the war with Gaza that erupted on Oct. 7, the deadliest day in Israel's history.

Gantz, 64, who leads a centrist party that now holds a commanding lead in the opinion polls, joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's emergency cabinet last year. He says the fact that he was willing to join a unity government with the right wing Netanyahu and his nationalist religious allies, showed the scale of the crisis facing Israel.

While Gantz has been as adamant as any other leader in Israel that the war can only end when Hamas is destroyed, he is far more open to dialogue with the Palestinians than Netanyahu and his allies from the settler movement like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich or Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Despite the international alarm at the mounting death toll in Gaza, he is unlikely to deviate from the government's path of continuing the war until final victory.

But as US and international pressure grows for a revival of efforts to reach a two state solution, Gantz's willingness to think about a political end to the conflict has brought the divisions more clearly into focus.

Gantz is due to meet both Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the fact that it is he, rather than Netanyahu, who is making the visit has caused a storm. Netanyahu's relations with US President Joe Biden have been so strained that more than a year after taking office, he has still not received an invitation to visit Washington.

Anonymous briefers have told Israeli outlets "there is only one prime minister" and the media have reported that Netanyahu had forbidden Israel's ambassador in the United States from supporting the visit.

"It's a shame this trip wasn't coordinated in advance with the Prime Minister," Smotrich told a faction meeting in parliament on Monday, describing Gantz as a "weak link" in the government and calling on him to openly declare his opposition to a Palestinian state.

"Gantz is playing into the hands of the Biden administration and is actually promoting their plan to establish a Palestinian state," Smotrich said.

While the shock of Oct. 7 has put the normal rules of politics on hold, Netanyahu faces the anger of the majority of Israelis who blame him for the security failures that allowed the devastating attack, that killed some 1,200 people.

Surveys show Gantz's National Unity Party a clear favorite to come out on top in any election held today, with a majority of voters judging that Netanyahu's main motivation for continuing the war was his own political survival, according to a Channel 13 poll on Monday.

Attacks

A strong opponent of Netanyahu's drive to overhaul the judiciary which risked tearing Israel apart last year, Gantz has clashed frequently with his partners on the hard right, including Smotrich and on occasion the prime minister himself.

But he said that the unprecedented threat facing the country after Oct. 7 had prompted him to join forces with his rivals.

"This is not a political partnership I am in," he told a group of journalists in a briefing last year. "There is no way I would stand aside and play with politics under such circumstances."

Alongside Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the other main member of the war cabinet, and Gadi Eizenkot, another centrist former general, he has defended the Israeli military and security establishment from attack by Netanyahu allies.

Critics say such attacks are a means of diverting criticism from the prime minister himself.

A former paratrooper who commanded the elite Shaldag commando unit, Gantz spent most of his career in the military. As army chief of staff in 2012, he oversaw an eight day-operation in the Gaza Strip that began with the killing of the chief of Hamas' military wing in Gaza.

That conflict was part of a series of more or less limited confrontations between Israel and Hamas that had marked Israel's relations with the Palestinians ever since the movement took power in Gaza after a brief factional war in 2007.

The war that began on Oct. 7, when Hamas gunmen broke through the security fence around Gaza and tore through the Israeli communities just outside, killing some 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages, was different.

Israel has responded with a bombing campaign that has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, drawing increasing alarm even from firm allies like the United States.

Five months into the conflict, attention has increasingly turned to the situation that will follow the end of the war and here, Gantz's feeling that a political solution would have to be found may make him easier for Washington to deal with.



Ukraine's Earth Riches Are Rare and Difficult to Reach

 Ukraine has huge mineral resources and some coal mines are still operating despite Russia's invasion but huge investment will be needed to reach its rare earths. (AFP)
Ukraine has huge mineral resources and some coal mines are still operating despite Russia's invasion but huge investment will be needed to reach its rare earths. (AFP)
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Ukraine's Earth Riches Are Rare and Difficult to Reach

 Ukraine has huge mineral resources and some coal mines are still operating despite Russia's invasion but huge investment will be needed to reach its rare earths. (AFP)
Ukraine has huge mineral resources and some coal mines are still operating despite Russia's invasion but huge investment will be needed to reach its rare earths. (AFP)

Ukraine's soils hold some five percent of the world's mineral resources, which is what US President Donald Trump is anxious to secure, but not all of them are yet exploited -- or maybe even exploitable, according to experts.

Ukraine ranks 40th among mineral-producing countries, all categories combined (including coal), according to the 2024 edition of World Mining Data. It was the world's 10th largest producer of iron in 2022.

Geologists, including at France's Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM), found more than 100 resources, including iron, manganese and uranium, in a study of Ukraine published in 2023.

Minerals can be described as critical or strategic by countries for their economy or their energy production. The United States designates about 50 and the European Union more than 30.

The European Commission said: "Ukraine is a significant global supplier of titanium and is a potential source of over 20 critical raw materials."

It is a notable producer of manganese (the world's eighth largest producer, according to World Mining Data), titanium (11th) and graphite (14th), which is essential for electric batteries.

Ukraine has also said it "possesses one of the largest lithium deposits in Europe". However, the government added that the soft metal it is not yet extracted.

Rare earth elements (REE) are a very specific classification of 17 metals within the much wider category of critical minerals.

Ukraine is not known for its reserves of rare earths, which are essential for screens, drones, wind turbines, and electric motors. Trump has particularly declared he wants rare earths and demanded an accord on getting minerals in return for US aid for Ukraine to fight its war with Russia.

"Ukraine has several deposits containing rare earth elements" but none of these deposits have been mined, said Elena Safirova, a Ukraine specialist at the US Geological Survey.

In 2023, the BRGM said Ukraine has "significant REE resources" but that further exploration and development would require heavy investment.

The Ukrainian government said "rare earth metals are known to exist in six deposits". It said investment of $300 million would be needed to develop the Novopoltavske deposit, "which is one of the largest in the world".

Technically, some of the elements cited by the Ukrainian government (tantalum, niobium, beryllium, strontium, magnetite) are not on the list of 17 rare earths.

And some of the Ukrainian government projections are based on "a Soviet-era assessment of difficult-to-access rare earths deposits," rating agency S&P said in February.

Because the country's rare earths may be too low in concentration or too difficult to access, "Ukraine's deposits of rare earth elements might not be profitable to extract", S&P said.