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Will Netanyahu Clip the Wings of His New Cabinet Hawks?

Newly sworn-in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) chairs the first cabinet meeting of his new government in Jerusalem, on December 29, 2022. (AFP)
Newly sworn-in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) chairs the first cabinet meeting of his new government in Jerusalem, on December 29, 2022. (AFP)
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Will Netanyahu Clip the Wings of His New Cabinet Hawks?

Newly sworn-in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) chairs the first cabinet meeting of his new government in Jerusalem, on December 29, 2022. (AFP)
Newly sworn-in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) chairs the first cabinet meeting of his new government in Jerusalem, on December 29, 2022. (AFP)

One is a pistol-packing ex-member of an outlawed Jewish militant group. The other is a religious fundamentalist. Both are West Bank settlers averse to Palestinians' self-rule - let alone their hopes of statehood.

And as senior coalition partners to reelected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich will be within reach of the levers of power - a troubling prospect for Israel's once-dominant secular-left and friends in the West.

Netanyahu turned to the ultra-nationalists after centrist parties boycotted him over his long-running corruption trial. He needs their support to stay in office as he argues his innocence in court. But he denies this spells pliability to their demands.

"I will navigate this government. The other parties are joining me. I'm not joining them," Netanyahu told Al Arabiya on Dec. 15, pledging to enforce "liberal rightist" policymaking.

Besides, he said, "a lot of them have changed and moderated their views, principally because with the assumption of power comes responsibility".

There may be precedent in Avigdor Lieberman, a firebrand whose 2006 appointment as deputy prime minister triggered much the same response as Ben-Gvir's rise: liberal warnings of civil war and, on Israel's top TV satire, his lampooning as a Nazi.

Lieberman proved to be politically adaptable. He served in various coalitions - one of which included an Islamist party - and ended up in the current opposition, from which he has scorned Netanyahu's new allies as "zealots and extremists".

Still, Lieberman could also play spoiler from the right. As Netanyahu's foreign minister in a previous government, he would publicly promote a harder line on the Palestinians than the premier's. In a later term, Lieberman resigned as Netanyahu's defense minister in protest at a Gaza truce he deemed too lax.

Netanyahu's conservative Likud party has now retained the defense and foreign ministries. But the optics around Ben-Gvir and Smotrich may yet prove combustible for him - for example, if either man visits or prays at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, an icon of Palestinian nationalism which is also the holiest site for Judaism as vestige of its two ancient temples.

Netanyahu's previous 15 years as premier saw him feathering the nests of the hawks in his cabinet - or clipping their wings - as he deemed necessary. Back then, however, he had parties to his left to help him function as an ideological fulcrum.

"With all the parties in the incoming government situated to Netanyahu's right, it will be difficult for him to replicate that role this time," argued Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute think-tank. "Does he want to?"

Pacing themselves

On Ben-Gvir's and Smotrich's calls for West Bank annexations, Netanyahu is on record as being in favor while also avoiding action on the ground that would risk escalating into confrontations with Washington or Arab partners.

Yet Smotrich did carve out a cabinet niche for himself overseeing settlements, which most world powers deem illegal for taking occupied land that Palestinians want for a state.

"He can be effective in multiplying and consolidating Israel's presence in the West Bank," said Amotz Asa-El, research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, noting Smotrich's high pace of infrastructure-building as a former transport minister.

For Ben-Gvir, by contrast, this is the first stint in government. As police minister, he will focus on law-and-order issues important to a swathe of Israelis, Asa-El predicted - including crime-hit Arabs against whom Ben-Gvir once agitated.

"After legitimating his position in broader Israeli circles, he will proceed to the realms that not all agree on - namely the West Bank," Asa-El said. But that may have to wait, as Ben-Gvir's portfolio does not grant major powers in the West Bank, which is under the overall control of the military.

Arguably, Ben-Gvir, 46, and Smotrich, 42, can afford to shelve some of their agendas for this round with Netanyahu, 73.

"But that's counting on restraint from people who come from very different ideological world-views than what we've seen in Israeli governments before," said Daniel Shapiro, a former US envoy to Israel and now Atlantic Council distinguished fellow.

Ben-Gvir came up through the Kahane Chai group, which is blacklisted in Israel and the United States for its virulently anti-Arab doctrines. Smotrich's advocacy of Jewish claims on the West Bank is informed by a doctrinaire faith in Bible prophesy.

Earlier generations of Israeli far-rightists in government "demonstrated an interest and capacity to engage in a genuine two-way dialogue with the United States and other international players, and seemed to recognize the limits on pursuing some of their most ideological positions," Shapiro said.

"It remains to be seen whether that approach will characterize members of the incoming coalition."

Alan Dershowitz, a prominent American-Jewish jurist who has advised US and Israeli leaders, said Ben-Gvir and Smotrich disavowed racism and homophobia in meetings with him this month.

"The word 'balance' came up a number of times" in their reassurances during the conversations, Dershowitz told Reuters.

"Obviously they were in some ways trying to get me to have a positive impression of them," he said. "Let's see what happens when I'm not in the room and the people in the room are pushing them to become more extreme. That's the litmus test."

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25 Years of Unanswered Questions in Iraq

A Saddam Hussein mural is seen in Baghdad in 1991. (Getty Images)
A Saddam Hussein mural is seen in Baghdad in 1991. (Getty Images)
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25 Years of Unanswered Questions in Iraq

A Saddam Hussein mural is seen in Baghdad in 1991. (Getty Images)
A Saddam Hussein mural is seen in Baghdad in 1991. (Getty Images)

People in Iraq often wonder dejectedly: What if Saddam Hussein were alive and ruling the country today? Many will reply with fantastical answers, but Saddam’s era would have responded: Iraq is isolated, either by siege or by a war that he launched or was being waged against him.

Many people cast doubt on whether actual change has been achieved in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003. The invasion ousted the Baath version of Iraq and Saddam was executed in December 2006, leaving questions to pile up over the years with no one having any answers.

After a quarter century, Iraq is accumulating questions. It casts them aside and forges ahead without addressing them. At best, it reviews itself and returns to that moment in April 2003 when the US launched its invasion. Or it asks new questions about the 2005 civil war, the armed alternatives that emerged in 2007, how ISIS swept through the country in 2014, or the wave of protests that erupted in 2019. It also asks new questions about Iran’s influence in the country that has persisted for decades.

The questions are many and none of the Iraqis have answered them.

A US marine wraps the American flag around the head of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad. (Reuters file)

Saddam and the alternative

The September 11, 2001, attacks shook the United States and the entire world. They struck fear in Baghdad. Saddam had that year claimed that he had written a book, “The Fortified Castle”, about an Iraqi soldier who is captured by Iran. He manages to escape and return to Iraq to “fortify the castle”.

The terrifying Saddam and the terrified Iraqis have long spun tales about escaping to and from Iraq. It is a journey between the question and the non-answers. That year, when Baghdad was accused of being complicit in the 9/11 attacks, Saddam’s son Uday was “elected” member of the Baath party’s leadership council. The move sparked debate about possible change in Iraq. Bashar al-Assad had a year earlier inherited the presidency of Syria and its Baath party from his father Hafez.

The US invaded Iraq two years later and a new Iraq was born. Twenty-five years later, the country is still not fully grown up. Twenty-one years ago, on April 9, 2003, a US marine wrapped the head of a Saddam statue in Baghdad with an American flag. The Iraqis asked: why didn’t you leave us this iconic image, but instead of an American flag, used an Iraqi one?

Baghdad’s question and Washington’s answer

As the Iraqis observe the developments unfold in Syris with the ouster of Bashar from power, they can’t help but ask how this rapid “change” could have been possible without US tanks and weapons. Why are the Syrians insisting on celebrating “freedom” every day? They are also astonished at the Syrians who scramble to greet Abu Mohammed al-Golani, who has not yet managed to put this image behind him and fully assume his original identity of Ahmed al-Sharaa. The Iraqis wonder how the Syrians are managing this transition so far without a bloodbath.

They ask these questions because the Iraqis view and judge the world based on their own memories. They keep asking questions and await answers from others instead of themselves.

The Iraqis recall how in August 2003, after four months of US occupation, that the Jordanian embassy and United Nations offices were attacked, leaving several staff dead, including head of the UN mission Sergio de Mello. The Americans arrested Ali Hassan al-Majid, or “chemical Ali”, Saddam’s cousin, and 125 people were killed in a bombing in al-Najaf, including Shiite cleric Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim.

During that bloody month, the Iraqis asked questions about security, forgetting about Saddam’s alternative, democracy and the promised western model. Later, the facts would answer that the question of security was a means to escape questions about transitional justice.

Sergio de Mello (r) and Paul Bremmer (second right) attend the inaugural meeting of the Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad on July 13, 2003. (Getty Images)

The question of civil war

Paul Bremer, the American ruler of Iraq, once escorted four opposition figures to Saddam’s prison cell. They flooded him with questions. Adnan al-Pachachi, a veteran diplomat, asked: “Why did you invade Kuwait?” Adel Abdul Mahdi, a former prime minister, asked: “Why did you kill the Kurds in the Anfal massacre?” Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a former national security adviser, asked: “Why did you kill your Baath comrades?” Ahmed al-Halabi simply insulted the former president. Saddam recoiled and then just smiled.

Saddam’s opponents left the prison cell with answers that should have helped them in running the transitional justice administration, but they failed.

The following year, Washington appointed Ayad Allawi to head the interim Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) that had limited jurisdiction so that it could be free to wage two fierce battles: one in Najaf against the “Mahdi Army”, headed by Moqtada al-Sadr, and the other against armed groups comprised of “resistance fighters” and “extremists” in Fallujah.

The opposition in the IGC got to work that was already prepared by the Americans. They outlined the distribution of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in the country, with historic questions about the majority and minority, and the “oppressed” now assuming rule after the ouster of the “oppressors”.

On the ground, the Ghazaliya neighborhood in western Baghdad with its Shiite and Sunni residents was in store for a bloodbath. On a winter night in 2005, an entire family was massacred and an enfant strangled to death. Soon after, lines drawing the Shiite and Sunni sections of the neighborhood emerged. The popular market became the tense border between the two halves. Two new rival “enemies” traded attacks, claiming several lives.

In Baghdad’s Green Zone, the IGC drew up a draft of the transitional rule. In January 2005, 8 million Iraqis voted for the establishment of a National Assembly.

Meanwhile, different “armies” kept on emerging in Baghdad. The media was filled with the death tolls of bloody relentless sectarian attacks. Checkpoints manned by masked gunmen popped up across the capital.

Those days seemed to answer the question of “who was the alternative to Saddam.” No one needed a concrete answer because the developments spoke for themselves.

Nouri al-Maliki came to power as prime minister in 2006. He famously declared: “I am the state of law” - in both the figurative and literal sense. Iraqis believed he had answers about the “state” and “law”, dismissing the very pointed “I” in his “manifesto”.

Nouri al-Maliki. (Getty Images)

The Maliki question

The American admired Maliki. Then Vice President Dick Cheney had repeatedly declared that he was committed to the establishment of a stable Iraq. Before that however, he had dispatched James Steele - who was once complicit in running dirty wars in El Salvador in the mid-1980s - to Baghdad to confront the “Sunni rebellion”. Steele set up the Shiite “death squads”. Steele was the man in the shadows behind Ahmed Kazim, then interior minister undersecretary, and behind him stood the new warlords.

In 2006, the political process was shaken by the bombing of the Al-Askari Shrine in Samarra. Questions were asked about the “need” to draw up new maps. Shiite high authority Ali al-Sistani said in February 2007 that the Sunnis were not involved in the attack. In July 2013, Maliki denied an American accusation that Tehran was behind it.

In those days, Maliki’s ego was growing ever bigger, and Steele’s death squads were rapidly growing greater in numbers.

The Iran and ISIS questions

Maliki tried to save himself as one city after another fell into the hands of ISIS. On June 9, 2014, as ISIS was waging battles in Mosul, Maliki met with senior Sunni tribal elders based on advice he had not heeded earlier and which could have averted the current disaster.

It was said that he made reluctant pledges to them and a third of Iraq later fell in ISIS’ hands. Sistani later issued a fatwa for “jihad” against the group, which later turned out not be aimed at saving the premier.

Maliki left the scene and Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, took over. Successive prime ministers would know from then on what it is like to be shackled by Tehran’s pressure as IRGC officials made regular visits to their offices.

Soleimani reaped what Steele sowed. By 2017, armed factions were the dominant force in Iraq. Running in their orbit were other factions that took turns in “rebelling” against the government or agreeing with its choices.

Today, and after 14 years, Iran has consolidated what can be described as the “resistance playground” in Iraq that is teeming with armed factions and massive budgets.

Protesters in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square in October 2019. (AFP)

The October question

The Iraqis were unable to answer the ISIS question and the armed factions claimed “victory” against the group. Many ignored Sistani’s “answer” about whether the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) was there to protect Iraq or just its Shiites.

Exhausted Iraqis asked: “What next?”

Next came Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government in October 2018. It was weighed down by unanswered questions and a year later, thousands of youths took to the streets to protest the state of affairs in Iraq, specifically the dominance of armed groups.

They were met with live bullets. Many were abducted and others were silenced. Abdul Mehdi acquitted the killers, saying instead that a “fifth column” had carried out the bloody crackdown on protesters.

After he left office, some Iraqi politicians were brave enough to tell the truth, dismissing former PM’s acquittal and pinning blame on the factions.

Sistani called for PMF members to quit their partisan affiliations. His demand was left unheeded. Mustafa al-Qadhimi became prime minister in May 2020. He left office months later, also failing in resolving the issue of the PMF and armed factions.

By 2022, everyone had left the scene, but Iran remained, claiming the Iraqi crown for itself, controlling everything from its finances to its weapons.

Question about post-Assad Syria

On December 8, Syria’s Bashar fled the country. Everyone in Iraq is asking what happens next. The whole system in Iraq is at a loss: Do we wait for how Tehran will deal with Ahmed al-Sharaa, or do we ask Abu Mohammed al-Golani about his memories in Iraq?

The Iraqi people’s memories are what’s ruling the country, more so than the constitution, political parties and civil society because they are burdened with questions they don’t want to answer.

And yet they ask: What if we weren’t part of the “Axis of Resistance”? Iraq’s history would reply that it has long been part of axes, or either awaiting a war or taking part in them.