Is Israel on the verge of normalizing ties with the Persian Gulf? - By Herb Keinon -
The most illuminating moment for me during the two-day "Peace to Prosperity" workshop here came, oddly enough, during a seven-minute phone interview back to Israel with a haredi media platform called Hadashot Hascoopim.
Earlier in the day I had posted a short video that went viral of about 10 men at the synagogue in Manama - including White House chief mediator Jason Greenblatt - wearing their tallitot and tefillin and, hand in hand, dancing around the bimah after morning services singing "Am Yisrael Hai" (The People of Israel Lives).
The interviewer began the segment by asking for a description of the "services that took place this morning in Bahrain, in an ancient synagogue, with unbridled joy and the singing of 'Am Yisrael Hai,' joined by the Chabad emissary and Jason Greenblatt, the haredi Jew who is Trump's Mideast envoy."
And while the moment was indeed moving and unusual - it was the first morning minyan in memory held in the small synagogue - some perspective is needed.
First of all, the Bahraini synagogue is not "ancient." It was built just over 100 years ago to serve the small Jewish community in the kingdom, mostly immigrants from Iraq. Secondly, the singing of "Am Yisrael Hai" there, though poignant, was not exactly done with unbridled joy. Happy, yes; unbridled joy? That's an exaggeration. And, finally, it is questionable whether Greenblatt would agree with his being characterized as a haredi Jew.
What is telling here is how the interviewer opted to portray the event, to play it up. Earlier in the day, in an interview with Army Radio, the minyan and the dance were also highlighted, though the presenter was more accurate in his description.
Why is this significant? Because it shows how we want things to be.
Israelis, so long isolated and shunned in the region, desperately and understandably want to be accepted here. As a result, sometimes the smallest crumbs thrown in our direction are magnified to appear as if they are a multilayered wedding cake.
THIS WEEK'S "Peace to Prosperity" workshop in Bahrain was significant, no doubt, though the true significance will be measured only down the road. It was important because it was the first rollout of Washington's attempt to create a new paradigm for peacemaking.
No more would the United States give the rejectionist Palestinian Authority veto power over its efforts. The PA boycotted the conference, so the administration just shrugged and said, "So what? We will hold it anyway and invite some of the biggest financial guns in the Middle East to take part."
No more would the paradigm of economic assistance to the Palestinians be along the model of charity: donors pouring billions of dollars onto a client with his hands out. The plan's $50 billion project is based on investments, not handouts.
This reflects the mind-set of the businessmen turned diplomats - headed by Jared Kushner - driving the program. It also explains why the conference would go ahead without official PA participation. If you want to invest in the West Bank through the private sector, you don't necessarily need the government.
"Paradigm" was one word that was heard over and over at the conference here. It was heard from speakers on the center stage during plenary sessions, and it was heard in the hallways where delegates from around the world mingled amid tables laden with colorful pastries and silver urns full of rich coffee.
It was a word used repeatedly by Kushner and by others in his entourage. Paradigm. Or, more accurately, changing paradigms, paradigm shifts.
One paradigm shift was to move the world community from supporting the Palestinians through charity, to investing in the West Bank and Gaza instead. And the second paradigm shift mentioned was in the Arab world's changing attitudes toward Israel. In that context, the Bahrain government's granting of visas to eight journalists from six Israeli media outlets was also seen as a significant part of what was taking place in Manama.
But here, too, some perspective is needed. Israeli journalists walking around Manama's soil has happened before; this is not Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. It happened - in 1994 at a conference following the Oslo I Accord.
Secondly, Israelis are not an unknown quantity in Manama.
At the Ali Baba Cave Antiques & Carpets store in the souk, the merchant behind the counter said it is not infrequent for Israelis to shop for painted Persian brass vases and Turkish teacups in his shop.
"They are here because Israel has good ties with Saudi Arabia," he offered. It is an open secret that Israeli businessmen have been discreetly coming here and doing business for years.
So not only is the arrival of Israeli journalists in the country not unprecedented, the presence here of Israeli businessmen is not unheard of. The gestures this week must therefore be seen as yet another of the baby steps being taken toward reaching a more normal state of relations between Israel and the Arab world.
These public steps go back to a visit by an interdenominational Bahrain delegation to Jerusalem in December 2017, continued with Saudi Arabia allowing Air India to fly over its airspace to and from Israel, and extended through Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's publicized visit to Oman last December and the playing of "Hatikvah" when an Israeli judoka won an event in an international competition in the United Arab Emirates.
Bahrain inviting Israeli journalists to cover this event is another point along this line, as was the Bahraini government's approval to open the synagogue for prayer, and the interview that Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled Bin Ahmed al-Khalifa gave to three of the news outlets on hand where he acknowledged that Israel is an established fact in the region.
As nice as it is to hear the Bahrain foreign minister acknowledge us, this - too - must be put in perspective, and even his saying these words to Israeli journalists does not put us suddenly on the eve of normalizing ties with the Persian Gulf.
The finance ministers from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates at the conference spoke of economic development in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and neighboring countries at the conference, not about normalizing ties with Israel. And they all paid the necessary lip service to the Palestinian cause.
The Bahraini foreign minister in his interviews talked about Israel as an established fact, something that exists, and that its people want peace. While it is significant that he uttered those words, they have been said by other Gulf leaders in the past - though not to Israeli journalists - and should not be conflated to the equivalent of Anwar Sadat landing in Jerusalem.
Context is needed, and the context is that a lot has changed since 2002 when the Saudis put forward their Arab Peace Initiative, which would normalize ties with Israel if Israel did everything the Arab world asked: withdraw completely to the 1967 lines, including on the Golan Heights, and find a fair accommodation for the refugees, generally interpreted as allowing a symbolic number into Israel and paying reparations for the resettlement of the other refugees and their descendants in the countries where they now reside.
In other words, the Arab world would accept Israel, if Israel gave in to all its demands. Israel, understandably, did not grasp the offer with both hands.
Khalifa, in his interview with Channel 13, bewailed this.
"I am concerned about the Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for a two-state solution," he said. "This has been accepted worldwide. If you look at the history of the dispute, there were a lot of mistakes. The Palestinians missed Camp David in 2000, but the Israelis missed the Arab Peace Initiative. We didn't even hear a hint of a positive welcome of the Arab Peace Initiative from the Israeli government."
Much has occurred in the intervening 17 years. The Middle East is still in the throes of the cataclysmic Arab Spring, and Iran has cast a long, dark shadow over the region.
There are new tensions in the Gulf, and as a result the Gulf countries are looking toward the US, and - to a much, much lesser degree - to Israel for assistance.
In 2002 the Gulf countries felt far less threatened by Iran, their economies could still rely on oil as its nonstop engine, and there was not a burning need to strengthen relations and ties with the US, both the administration and Congress.
That is not the case now. Today there is a palpable fear of Iran and the possibility of a war erupting at any time. Making America happy is important, and making America happy was the driving force behind this conference in Manama.
It is why the Bahrainis hosted the conference in the first place, it is why Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar all sent high-level representatives to take part - despite the anger this caused the Palestinians.
And it is also why the Bahrainis made gestures to Israel, such as allowing in journalists and enabling prayer services in the city's synagogue. These are all points along the long line toward a normalization of ties, but that line is very long, and despite some of the breathless narration this week, we are still very much at the beginning.
Anti-Semitism a Sure Signal - Terry James - https://www.raptureready.com/category/nearing-midnight/
Sometime ago, I wrote the following in an article that had the title "Israelicide":
Forewarning of the fate that the nations of earth face leaps from Bible prophecy. Those who make Jerusalem and Israel the object of hatred will pay a terrible price. And make no mistake, the city and nation (Jewish people) are inextricably linked: "And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth are gathered together against it" (Zechariah 12:3).
To "burden themselves" with Jerusalem and with Israel (Judah) in this case means to come against the city and people in a hostile sense. God is saying through Zechariah that at the end of the age, near the consummation of His dealing with this earth system, all nations of earth will make Jerusalem and His chosen people the center of their anger and aggression. The aggressors against God's city (Jerusalem, the apple of his eye-see Zechariah 2:8) and the Jewish people will result in devastation for those attackers.
Perhaps it's just the old advertising guy in me, but I want to coin a new word-"Israelicide"-for what the nations of the world are doing. The word means two things in my thinking: 1) to commit satanically inspired genocide against the Jewish race; and 2) the collective suicide of Israel's enemies whose coalescing unity of mind curses Israel.
Since the time I wrote that article, a new presidential administration has come to power. President Donald J. Trump has formed a close relationship with our strongest ally in the Middle East-or anywhere else for that matter. Whereas Mr. Obama made the statement right off the bat after coming to power following the 2008 election that he would put "daylight" between America and Israel.
Obama, indeed, proceeded to do exactly that. We remember that upon Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House, President Obama treated him shabbily. He left the prime minister after a very short visit and went to have dinner in the White House private quarters. it was a deliberate snub that set the tone for the entire Obama presidency.
Mr. Trump, on the other hand, has warmly embraced his friend Bibi and the Jewish nation. A majority in Israel have reciprocated with warm friendship upon the president's actions. There are many places within Israel being named after Donald Trump. Some religionists consider him the second coming of Cyrus, who befriended Israel's people millennia ago.
This indicates that all is improved in regard to Israel's welcome into the world community, right? Wrong... Not at all.
Statistics show anti-Israel bias is on the rise-even in America. It seems to follow the pattern of the insane rage against Israel's close friend, Donald J. Trump.
As reported earlier, New York City, where the heaviest Jewish population in the U.S. resides, saw a massive 82 percent rise in anti-Semitic hatred in the first three months of 2018 alone, according to the New York Police Department. The Anti-Defamation League's 2018 audit of anti-Semitic incidents found that there was an even bigger rise of anti-Semitic hate crime in New York State- an increase of 170 percent from the third to the fourth quarter of 2018.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of growing anti-Semitism in America is that taking place on American college campuses. Again, in my view, this seems to closely follow the hellish course of anti-Trump hatred, fomented, I believe, by radical leftist professors, aided and abetted by the Democrat Party and the main stream news and entertainment media.
The so-called conservative voice continues to be completely muzzled by colleges and universities for the most part. We have heard time after time of even well known speakers who put forth the conservative viewpoint being prevented from carrying out previously agreed-to speaking events. The conservative voices almost all advocate for Israel as the national entity that is legitimately a nation being accosted. The left-in my opinion now a victim of a collective reprobate mind as forewarned in Romans chapter 1-see Israel as the "occupier" of land belonging to the Palestinians. Thus, although there was never such a people known as Palestinians before the end of World War I.
It is dumbfounding that even some self-acclaimed evangelicals join the chorus of Israel illegitimately occupying territory belonging to the Palestinian pretenders.
The young who have no understanding of truth about the Israel-vs-Palestinian issues because they have been grossly under educated or lied to by their leftist professors are suffering an increasing, collective anxiety. They fear Israel will precipitate a conflict that will morph into worldwide nuclear war. This, they are taught in many cases.
Such deliberately spawned hatred for Israel among the colleges and universities has been among other factors bringing about a forum to address these things. A brief news excerpt follows.
Moderating a panel in Jerusalem this week titled "The Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism: The Media, BDS and Celebrated Bigotry," David Hazony, executive director of the Israel Innovation Fund, analyzed the issue right off the bat: "What you are seeing on [North American college] campuses is only a thin slice of the anti-Semitic beast that has emerged in our public life around the world in the last six months, in the last year."
The event was hosted by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), in partnership with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) and Hazony's organization.
Hazony added, "All of a sudden, The New York Times' editorial-page cartoons; all of a sudden, columns; all of a sudden, valedictory addresses, commencement speeches, congressional convocations, politicians-all of a sudden in America, you've got synagogues being shot up, synagogues being torched. All of a sudden, what we thought had been hidden, gone away, has come roaring back."
He went on to ask: "Is it possible that anti-Semitism and assimilation-the two great crises facing the Diaspora today-are really two sides of the same coin?"
"At a time when the next generation of Jews feels less connection, has less knowledge, has less commitment to our collective than any generation in the past," he continued, "is it any wonder that this monster that's been lurking in the deep smells blood, smells weakness and chooses this time to rear its head?". (Jerusalem Conference Addresses Recent Spike of Jew-Hatred in US, Breaking Israel News | Latest News. Biblical Perspective By JNS, June 14, 2019)
The growing anti-Semitic hatred in the US-supposedly Israel's ally and best friend-indicates the level of hatred Satan is ratcheting up around the world. I believe it is a global hatred against God's chosen nation, around which those who ultimately will follow Antichrist will rally.
Israel and America are almost alone as major national players that stand against a ravenous, globalist hunger to bring down all national boundaries. The hatred for this president by the one-world, no-national-boundaries collective, makes it obvious how near Christ's call must be to the Church.
With the Church removed to Heaven, God's program for again dealing with Israel in order to bring about a remnant of the Jewish people for Christ's Millennial kingdom, will then get underway. Most all the world will come against Israel and Jerusalem at the time of Armageddon. They will all be destroyed, just as the Gog-Magog forces of Ezekiel 38-39 that will have attacked Israel earlier. Israel will be the last nation standing.
"And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." (Genesis 17:7-8)
Russia in Jerusalem - Jim Fletcher -
More proof that we can't really accurately make short-term predictions is seen in the announcement that the U.S., Israel, and...Russia(!) will meet in Jerusalem to discuss Mideast security issues.
According to a report in Al-Monitor:
"National security advisers John Bolton, Nikolay Patrushev and Meir Ben-Shabbat will convene June 24 in the Israeli capital to discuss the post-war order in Syria.
"'This is a crazy event. I don't have sufficient superlatives to describe it,' an Israeli defense source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. 'It's true that at this stage, the importance of the event is in the very decision to hold it, but think about it: Fifty-two years after Jerusalem's liberation, we are bringing together there the heads of the American and Russian security councils to discuss arrangements for Syria after the war, with us as part of the process.' The official got somewhat carried away talking about a 'new Sykes-Picot' - referring to the 1916 agreement dividing the region between the British and French colonial powers. Still, there is rare consensus in Israel about the summit being a tremendous achievement for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a strategic Israeli message to Iran and the rest of the Middle East that Israel is part of the axis of powers working together to instill a new order in the Middle East."
Too often, I believe, we who love Bible prophecy like to announce that, for example, Ezekiel 38-39 is about to erupt.
Russia is the main bad actor in this drama, which will certainly happen at some point. If we're honest, we have to admit that "Gog" might be Putin, or he might be a leader no one has heard of as of yet.
Currently, Putin knows full well that Israel is a force to be reckoned with. Obviously, he is no friend to the Jewish state, but the big, bad Vlad is a realist. With a naval base secured off the Syrian coast-long a coveted prospect for the Russians-Putin can bide his time. And now, astoundingly, the Russians need a strong Israel to keep the really bad actors at bay.
Who could have foreseen this? Certainly not me. For 40 years, I've heard that God-Magog was on the horizon.
It's a long horizon.
Right now I'm looking at an email exchange between some prophecy students, several of whom are deluxe researchers. The speculation right now involves a specific prophecy related to Iran. The exchanges are a little chippy, as each jockeys for position to prove a point. Current events (as in real time) are being monitored by these people so that they can tell us all what is going to happen to and with Iran immediately.
But they will likely be wrong.
I don't believe as preterists do, that much of prophecy has already been fulfilled, nor do I think the fulfillment of the greatest prophecies are very far off at all.
Neither do I believe, though, that we can say things with certainty when it comes to dates and places and actors. So long as these discussions stay in the realm of emails, that's fine. It's friends debating friends.
But the wider culture knows very, very little about the Bible. Actually, nothing about the Bible. Millions don't even know a person named Isaiah ever existed in the ancient Near East. They don't have a clue what our prophetic terminology means, and they aren't aware of most end-times events. They have watched goofy apocalyptic movies starring people like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
What I wish we would do, as believers and supporters of Israel and students of Bible prophecy, is share the Gospel with them, using the prophetic model.
This is not being done on a wide scale by any very large ministry in this country. There is a void in this teaching. Andy Stanley hates it. So do Rick Warren and all the church growth guys. The Southern Baptists are now embarrassed about it. The Pentecostals are even dissing it.
So here you have a great opportunity.
Tell people what the Bible says about Bible prophecy, not what-I'm going to say it-John Hagee says about Bible prophecy. We jam our interpretations into the prophetic passages of the Bible and then stubbornly camp there. I wish we'd keep our eyes on the big picture, and use the astonishing, truly unique, and transcendent prophecies of the Bible to show people that Jesus Christ is the King of kings.
In some prophecy circles, there was/is no room for Russia as even a temporary ally of sorts with Israel.
Yet the Russians are in Jerusalem.
What The Trump Peace Plan Cannot Accomplish - By Jonathan Tobin - http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=3304
When the Trump administration released the economic portion of its Middle East peace plan last week, the avalanche of criticism was immediate and harsh.
Even though the president's foreign-policy team couched the plan as a "vision" of peace rather than an intricate blueprint, its critics weren't wrong in pointing out that there was little in it that was new, and that its chances of success were nil.
Yet in analyzing the effort, it's important to note that there's a difference saying that the plan won't succeed and saying that putting it forth was the wrong thing to do. That's because the problem with it isn't the content, but the context.
An effort to shift the focus from a push on Israeli concessions, which are never enough to satisfy the Palestinians, to one in which Palestinian society could be transformed--economically and hopefully peaceably--was long overdue. But as long as the intended beneficiaries aren't interested in such programs, the "ultimate deal" is simply not going to happen under any circumstances.
The sticking point is clear. Palestinian Authority leaders say they want the investment and aid, but that any discussion of economics must await a political settlement in which they will be given an independent state. Only after they achieve sovereignty, they say, will the aid be welcome or relevant.
That's a fact that many Trump-administration critics have echoed when dismissing the plan authored by presidential adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner and U.S. negotiator Jason Greenblatt. They say Trump's team is putting the cart before the horse and effectively rendering the peace process irrelevant by not focusing on the actual points of contention that separate the parties, like borders, settlements and refugees.
As veteran State Department peace processor Aaron David Miller, who now heads the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank, put it: "The Palestinians' economic problem isn't a lack of money. It's a lack of liberty."
Even if we were to lay aside for the moment that the main obstacle to Palestinian liberty is the tyrannical rule of Hamas in Gaza and that of Fatah in the West Bank rather than Israel, this argument fails to answer the key question that most be posed to critics of Trump's plan: Why have decades of peace processing by foreign-policy professionals like Miller, who knew a lot more about the conflict and diplomacy than Trump's Middle East team, always failed?
All previous administrations have paid some lip service to economic issues, with many issuing their own plans that were not dissimilar to the one Trump just proposed. They have all taken the approach the Palestinians say they prefer: how to strong-arm Israel into agreeing to a two-state solution.
Yet that strategy never succeeded, no matter how much pressure presidents like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama put on the Jewish state, and no matter how many times Israel said "yes" to two states as they did a number of times in the last 20 years.
The Palestinians had their chance to get the "liberty" they say they wanted in 2000, 2001 and 2008, when Israeli governments put a two-state solution with almost all of the West Bank and a share of Jerusalem in their hands.
They also enjoyed eight years of an Obama administration that clearly saw Israeli policies as the main obstacle to peace. Still, every time they had the chance to get the state they say they want so badly, they said "no."
At some point, the foreign-policy professionals should have figured out that the old approach was never going to work.
That is, in essence, what Kushner, Greenblatt and company have done by attempting to restart the conversation about peace in a different way.
Instead, they think emphasizing policies that will give the Palestinians a stake in peace and promoting measures that will mandate good governance have the potential to change everything. You can call that an attempt to "bribe" the Palestinians into accepting peace with Israel, but all it really amounts to is a reminder that coexistence would create a better reality than the current one rooted in conflict.
Trump was right to try to end his predecessors' coddling of Palestinian fantasies of defeating Israel, which is what their policies of non-recognition of Jerusalem and refusing to condition aid on ending support for terror amounted to.
The problem is that the Palestinians' century-old war on Zionism has become inextricably linked to their national identity to the point where it is impossible for anyone inside their political structure to imagine normal life alongside a Jewish state.
And even if they could make that leap of imagination, entrenched forces like Hamas and other Islamist groups, as well as the millions of descendants of the 1948 Arab refugees who continue to hold onto the false hope of erasing the last 71 years of history, won't like them act on it.
That's why Hamas continues to promote the "right of return" as if the eradication of the Jewish state was a viable option. And it's why the Palestinian Authority continues to subsidize terror in the form of salaries for imprisoned terrorists, and pensions for their families and survivors, because to do otherwise would be to admit that their defeat in a war they haven't the courage or the good sense to give up on.
If Trump's plan is going to fail--and it will--it can be attributed to these reasons. It's not because previous administrations understood the conflict any better, or that the focus on economics is wrongheaded.
If this latest approach doesn't work, then the blame should fall on those responsible--the Palestinians--not on the ideas behind the plan itself.
Does trilateral Jerusalem summit indicate Russia's willingness to restrain Iran? -
National security advisers from Russia and the U.S. joined their Israeli counterpart in Jerusalem on Tuesday for a high-level conference, which was called by Israel to look for ways to restrain Iran in Syria.
The results of the conference were not immediately clear, but the fact that it took place was touted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an indication of Russian and American recognition of Israel's centrality as a strategic regional actor. It also indicated a Russian willingness to address Israeli concerns over Iranian conduct in Syria, according to Israeli officials.
Russian President Vladimir Putin dispatched his national security advisor, Nikolai Patrushev, to Jerusalem, where he met with Israel's Meir Ben-Shabbat, and America's John Bolton at the Orient Hotel on Tuesday.
In a statement prior to the summit, Ben-Shabbat said that in-depth discussions have been ongoing between Netanyahu, and the Russian and American leaderships.
He warned that the international community will not be able to promote security and stability in the region "without restraining the ambitions and actions of Iran. The events of the recent period give an additional reminder of this conclusion."
In his comments at the summit, Patrushev backed Iran's role in Syria, saying that Tehran is "contributing a lot to fighting terrorists on Syrian soil and stabilizing the situation there."
However, he did offer an acknowledgement of Israel's security interests.
"We pay special attention to ensuring Israel's security," he said, adding that it is "a special interest of ours because here in Israel live a little less than about two million of our countrymen. Israel supports us in several channels, including at the U.N."
As expected, Bolton strongly disputed Iran's positive contributions to Syria, even pointing out that Putin had called for Iran to leave the country.
"The Russians have said repeatedly that they would like to see Iranian forces leave," he said
'The Syrian balance of power'
During a conference call with journalists, organized by Media Central, a media liaison center based in Jerusalem, Col. (res.) Eran Lerman, a former senior Israeli defense official, discussed the significance of the conference.
"Israel is a player in the Syrian balance of power," he said. "The Russian leadership has a very healthy respect, based on experience and knowledge, for Israeli military capabilities ... this is why this conversation takes place here," he said.
Lerman served as the deputy director for foreign policy and international affairs at the National Security Council in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office. He has also held senior posts in military intelligence for more than 20 years.
Ideally, he said, Syrian President Basher Assad would be pressured by Russia to oust the Iranians altogether. "But I think we have a fairly realistic assessment, and that is not on the cards," he said. "So we hope for a very clear delimitation and a capping of Iranian penetration [of Syria]. Gradually getting rid of the Shi'ite militias that the Iranians have been bringing in. And a very clear limit on how much the Iranians can use Syrian territory."
Iran has increasingly been seeking to use Syria, both to destabilize Jordan, and launch attacks on Israel, noted Lerman. While making very specific commitments would be unwise, he said, "clearly, Israel will not tolerate an Iranian presence close to the Golan Heights, or a few kilometers to the north."
But beyond that, he stated, the general policy that Israel would hope for from Moscow is a clear signal, according to which, if Assad wishes to have Moscow comfortably at his side during the very difficult period of rebuilding Syria, "he needs to be much more proactive in not letting the Iranians run the country."
Lerman described the summit as "groundbreaking," adding that "unavoidably, this will be extended to the broader situation in the region. I think we can confidently say that this is part of broader of Israeli diplomacy and the repositioning of Israel in international affairs. It is quite remarkable."
Israel's intimate dialogue with Russia is a critical development, he added, "despite major differences."
"I don't expect a major breakthrough overnight in Syria. The Russians are in no position to secure the removal of all Iranians from Syrian soil. But I think we can speak about significant progress towards a mutual understanding between all three participants," he stated.
The question of whether Iran will continue to use Syria to attack Israel, threaten Jordan and consolidate its hold on Lebanon, or whether Iran will be marginalized and Russia becomes the key player in stabilizing Syria, lies at the heart of the summit, argued Lerman.
Asked about Russian expectations in exchange for pressure on Iran, Lerman said that further down the road, once the dialogue turns into more concrete steps, "there will be asks on their part from the American side, and greater flexibility from the American side [regarding Russia] than there is now." However, this is "not something that will happen overnight," he assessed.
Lerman also drew a connection between the Jerusalem conference and the economic workshop taking place in Bahrain over the economic future of the Palestinians.
"Israel has already demonstrated that it is willing to take risks-we are willing to take action, we are willing to take violent action when necessary in order to ensure that Syria cannot easily be used by Iran for its purposes," he said. This willingness to confront Iranian ambitions helped spur Gulf states, which are threatened by Iran, to "be of help in redefining the Israeli-Palestinian relationship."
In a statement released during the conference, Netanyahu said that "one of the reasons why the [great] powers are coming here ... is, of course, the strength of the IDF."
He launched the conference with a speech, in which he acknowledged that Israel "acted hundreds of times" to prevent the military consolidation of Iran in Syria. He warned that Israel would continue to prevent Iran from using the territory of states neighboring Israel as a base for attacks and would respond forcefully to any Iranian-orchestrated attack.
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