Nathan Miller:
Thank you for coming everyone to What Would a Biden Presidency Mean for US- Israel Relations with Michael Koplow. We're really excited to have you all. So my name is Nathan Miller and I am a junior here at Brandeis. I'm originally from San Diego, California, and I'm a business major and a Near Eastern and Judaic Studies minor. And I am the events coordinator for the Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee. So we do bipartisan work for the Israel and American relationship. And I quickly want to introduce our speaker for the evening, Michael Koplow.
Nathan Miller:
So Michael is a Brandeis alum and he is currently the policy director of the Israel Policy Forum. Israel Policy Forum works to shape the discourse and mobilization of support among American Jewish leaders and US policy makers for the realization of a viable two-state solution. They do this by educating political and communal leaders on pragmatic policy ideas developed by credible security experts. So we're very happy to have Michael here this evening, and we're also joined by Gabriella Lieberman, who is a sophomore at Brandeis. She is a politics major and a Health: Science, Society, and Policy and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies minor.
Nathan Miller:
And so she'll be moderating this conversation this evening. And just a brief overview of the tonight's program, Michael will speak for about 20 minutes, and then Gabriella will lead a moderated Q&A with Michael. So if you have any questions throughout the program, please feel free to put them in the chat function. Just in the general chat function will be fine, or if you'd like to private message Gabriella separately, you're more than welcome to do that. So I think we can get started.
Michael Koplow:
Okay, great. So thank you Nathan and thank you Gabriella. Thank you as well to Celine Ginsburg from Brandeis Hillel for arranging this tonight. Also I see Rabbi Seth Winberg here, so a shout out to Seth. I also noticed that I'm not the only Koplow on this call, so I'll start a shout out to my father Meyer Koplow, who is the Chairman of the Board of Brandeis University. As Nathan noted, I am a Brandeis alum. I graduated in 2002. Is that right? Yeah, 2002. I've got to say, I've been to many other universities since and lived in different places, but I still miss my time at Brandeis and in Waltham.
Michael Koplow:
I hope that everyone on this call has as fond memories of Brandeis and Brandeis Hillel as I do. So to get to the topic for tonight's talk, we're going to discuss what we are likely to see from a Biden administration toward Israel and what that may mean for US-Israel relations. So, it definitely feels a bit odd sitting here five days before election day, talking about the potential for a different presidency, because of course, President Trump is the incumbent and he is running for reelection and so, this entire talk may be moot a week from now, but President Trump is more of a known quantity because he has a four year track record now as President of the United States.
Michael Koplow:
When he ran back in 2016, I actually talked to a fair amount about what he wanted to do in the Israeli-Palestinian sphere and his policy choices since becoming president had been relatively consistent, to the point where I think it's pretty easy to predict what his policy will look like in a second term and what that would mean for US-Israel relations. Vice president Biden, even though he has been a public figure for so long and not only a public figure, but a public figure who was very involved in foreign affairs, both as a Senator and where at one point he was the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and as vice president what he is likely to do in the Israeli-Palestinian sphere, I'm not is quite as clear as President Trump.
Michael Koplow:
There are a few reasons for this. First is that President Trump very clearly made Israeli priority from day one. Not only did he talk about trying to get to an ultimate deal between Israelis and Palestinians while he was campaigning, when he became president, he installed his son-in-law Jared Kushner as essentially his top Middle East policy person. He installed the top legal officer in his company in the Trump organization, Jason Greenblatt, as the envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
Michael Koplow:
He took his bankruptcy lawyer who had worked for him for over a decade, and made him ambassador to Israel. And so, when people talk about personnel being policy, President Trump based on personnel, really putting a large emphasis on Israel and on Israeli-Palestinian issues. Vice president Biden if he gets elected, he's going to be taking office under very different circumstances. First of all, obviously we are in the middle of the pandemic. I don't think it's going to magically disappear, irrespective of who wins the election. If I were a betting person, I'm not sure that I would bet that we're out of it even a year from now.
Michael Koplow:
So I think that Biden is going to come in really with a lot of things to tackle, and I don't think that Israeli-Palestinian issues or Israel in general is going to be at the top of the list. Second, to the extent that Biden is going to start off with the focus on the Middle East, he has telegraphed pretty clear that that focus initially is going to be on Iran and figuring out a way for the United States to reenter a modified version of the JCPOA, colloquially known as the Iran Deal. That was obviously a signature foreign policy initiative during the Obama Administration, and vice president Biden had a role in formulating the Iran Deal.
Michael Koplow:
And he's been pretty clear that if he becomes president, he wants to get to some agreement with Iran. This is not the subject of this talk, but I don't think it's going to be reentering the JCPOA as it was negotiated back in 2015. I think it will almost certainly be modified, but the point is that, to the extent that Biden is going to be focused on the Middle East, I think it's going to be focused more on the Iran issue, which of course touches Israel, but not in the same way. Third. It's generally the case that US presidents don't turn toward Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, until their second term.
Michael Koplow:
President Clinton of course oversaw the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 in his first year. But the Oslo Accords had very little to do with the United States. Those were negotiations that were initiated behind the US's back and the US helped get them over the finish line and hosted a nice party on the South lawn of the white house. But when President Clinton decided he wanted to focus on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, he did it at the very end, leading to the Camp David negotiations in 2000.
Michael Koplow:
Similarly President George W. Bush really didn't spend that much time on it during his first term. He turned to it in his second term, and culminating in Annapolis that ultimately were not successful. President Obama similarly was famously reticent about trying to get the parties together. And when he made a real push, it was in his second term in 2013, 2014, really at the behest of Secretary of State Kerry. President Trump is ... I'm not sure if he's unique in this regard, but he certainly were in this regard, in that he put a big priority on this issue early.
Michael Koplow:
And I think that Biden if he becomes president, is likely to take the more traditional approach. And if he turns to this topic, to do it later and not off of the bat. Now with all that said, I think there are many things that we can probably expect in terms of a Biden policy toward Israel and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first is that, there are a few hallmarks of President Trump's policy in this sphere. One of the ones that is the clearest and that is ... I think that in some ways had the greatest impact, has not been his actions toward Israel, it has been his actions toward the Palestinians.
Michael Koplow:
So, most famously President Trump, recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And that is what precipitated the downturn in relations between the US and the Palestinians since. December 2017, the Palestinians have effectively boycotted the United States, as a result of that decision. But that's actually not a decision that impacted the Palestinians in a real, tangible way. It's a big symbolic issue for them. But it's not something that actually really up ended, really upended US policy when it comes to the Palestinians.
Michael Koplow:
What President Trump did toward the Palestinians that really was a huge shift in policy that tangibly affected things on the ground, was the way the US treats the PLO and treats funding to the West Bank and Gaza. So, President Trump first halted and then absolutely froze all US funding in the West Bank and Gaza. I should know this is actually not funding that was going to the Palestinian authority. Starting in 2014, under President Obama, the United States cut off all direct budgetary support for the Palestinian authority in response to PA corruption and in response to the payments that the Palestinian authority makes to prisoners and to families of Palestinians who have been killed in the course of attacks on Israel.
Michael Koplow:
So the US was not actually giving money directly to the Palestinian authority, but the US was spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the West Bank and Gaza on humanitarian assistance and on infrastructure projects. Some of these infrastructure projects were actually ... people may recall touted by the Trump administration in 2017. So the US was spending a fair amount of money in the West Bank and Gaza, and the Trump administration cut that off entirely. And that had a real impact, not only on Palestinian finances because, while of course the US as I said, was not providing direct budgetary support to the PA, money that the US was spending, was then money that the PA didn't have to spend on its own projects.
Michael Koplow:
So for instance, if the US is spending money on water infrastructure or roads in the West Bank, those are dollars that the PA then doesn't have to spend itself. So this did have an impact on the PA budget, but it really had an impact on Palestinian quality of life most of all. Because these projects, some of them are things that the PA would have funded on its own. Many of them are not. And in the realm of humanitarian assistance, the US really had a big role and that is no longer money that we are providing. Second, President Trump cut off all money to UNRWA, The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
Michael Koplow:
And UNRWA is the organization that runs all of the Palestinian refugee camps, not only in the West Bank and Gaza, but in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan as well. Now this doesn't impact the West Bank as much, but it does impact Gaza enormously. Because in Gaza, you have a large amount of Palestinians who are classified by UNRWA as refugees. The entire school system in Gaza is run by UNRWA, and UNRWA provides not only education, but also healthcare and basic maintenance of the refugee camps to Palestinians who live in them.
Michael Koplow:
And this is a large percentage of the population in Gaza. And so when the US stopped funding UNRWA, that really contributed to a lot of problems for Palestinians in their day-to-day lives. In the West Bank a bit but as I said, much more so in Gaza. Third, the Trump administration did a number of things on the diplomatic front not having to do with funding. One of them was merging the consulate general in Jerusalem into the US embassy, which may not seem like a big deal off the bat, but, US up until this point, had maintained, the embassy under the ambassador and the consulate general, under the console general as separate entities.
Michael Koplow:
Because the consulate general, effectively served as US representation to the Palestinians, and before the merger of the consulate general into the embassy about a year and a half ago, the consulate general was actually one of, I think only two in entire US diplomatic corp that did not report directly to the ambassador, the constant general reported directly back to the State Department. And so by merging the consulate general into the embassy, the Trump administration effectively shuttered its independent mission to the Palestinians.
Michael Koplow:
In addition, the Trump administration closed the PLO mission in Washington. So, at the time this point, the US is not spending any money in the West Bank and Gaza to benefit Palestinians. And we also have no diplomatic contacts with the Palestinians because, we have closed the offices that did that. So I think that a Biden administration at the beginning, is almost certainly going to reverse some of these things. Now, funding to the West Bank and Gaza is a bit more complicated because, since President Trump took office, Congress passed the Taylor Force Act.
Michael Koplow:
Which prohibits the US from spending any money in the West Bank and Gaza that directly benefits the Palestinian authority, even if we're not giving money to the PA directly, we can't spend any money that directly benefits the PA, so long as the PA continues to make its payments to prisoners, and to families of Palestinians who've been killed in the course of attacks. So, this termination of what directly benefits the Palestinian authority is one that State Department lawyers have to determine, but as I noted before, because any money that US spends on infrastructure projects for instance, is money that the PA then does not have to spend.
Michael Koplow:
One can make an argument that this directly benefits the PA. So, even if the Biden administration does restore some fundings to the West Bank and Gaza, it's going to be more limited than it was in the past, but I'm certain that some of that funding will be restored. There's actually a lot of support in Congress to do it. One of the areas that there actually is no restriction, is in funding UNRWA, which in some ways is ironic because, the funding to UNRWA is actually a lot more politically controversial. And it's particularly controversial in Israel.
Michael Koplow:
But because of the way US law works, funding to UNRWA can restart literally on January 20th at noon, without having to deal with any existing US legislation. So, I think that a Biden administration is almost certainly going to restore some funding. I think it's almost certainly going to try to reopen the consulate general as an independent entity. Doing that will require Israeli government deco acquiescence, but I think that that's something that will certainly be a request from a Biden administration. The PLO mission in DC is also a lot more complicated.
Michael Koplow:
If we had more time ... and if somebody wants to ask me during Q&A, I'm happy to get into why but, there's another piece of legislation, the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act that was passed and then amended in the past two years and the way it was amended, makes it a lot more difficult to reopen the PLO mission. And again, I'm happy to go going into it later if people are particularly interested but, glad have to have your vote. But I think that certainly these are things that a Biden administration is going to attempt to do. Another big area where I think we are likely to see a Biden administration act, is in how the US treats the West Bank.
Michael Koplow:
So, aside from these moves toward the Palestinians, the largest impact that the Trump administration has had in the sphere, has been in collapsing the distinction between Israel inside the Green Line and territory that Israel controls in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. So, people here will ... I'm sure recall that in 2018, the Trump administration gave US recognition to Israel's move in 1981, to extend Israeli law and jurisdiction to the Golan Heights. The Trump administration also overturn the State Department's legal opinion dating back to 1978, that characterized settlements as being inconsistent with international law.
Michael Koplow:
Then really most comprehensively, the Trump plan that was released in January of this year, for the first time contemplated on the US's part contemplated Israeli unilateral annexation of territory in the West Bank. Now, annexation of West Bank territory is something that has been part of negotiations in the past, but it was never contemplated as a unilateral move. It was always contemplated in the context of land swaps. And those land swaps were always contemplated as being equal in size and equal in value.
Michael Koplow:
So the idea being that Israel could annex some of the large settlement blocks along the Green Line, depending on which map was being offered, comprising anywhere from three to 8% of the West Bank in return for giving three to 8% of Israeli territory to the Palestinians for a Palestinian state. The Trump plan really blew up this formula in two important ways. One is that the annexation that was contemplated in the Trump plan, was not in the context of a concurrent swap. Under the Trump plan. Israel was able to annex 30% of the West Bank. It was supposed to be able to do that at the beginning, and then following, negotiations with the Palestinians and the Palestinians having to meet a set of benchmarks, then there was contemplation in the Trump plan of Israel swapping 14% of its territory back to the Palestinians.
Michael Koplow:
So the annexation component was not being done in the context of a concurrent swap. Israel got to annex first, and then maybe later down the road, there would be a swap. And second, the swap was not equal, either in terms of size, it was 30% versus 14% or in value. Israel was getting 30% of the West Bank, and much of that is not only populated areas, but prime, agricultural territory and important roads. Whereas the Palestinians were mostly getting land in the Gaza envelope and in the Negev desert. So, in this sense, the Trump administration really collapsed a lot of these distinctions between territory that Israel controls.
Michael Koplow:
I'll note that just yesterday, we saw yet another example of this, where the US for the first time, extended three agreements that it has with Israel on scientific, academic and commercial cooperation. Agreements that were signed during the Nixon administration, and that were confirmed by every administration since. It extended these agreements to the West Bank and the Golan Heights. So, up until yesterday, these agreements on scientific cooperation that involved US taxpayer money, were limited in the text of the MOU to territory that was under Israel's control before June 5th, 1967.
Michael Koplow:
As of yesterday, that is no longer the case. And so, once again, even though Israel has not formally annexed the West Bank, and even though the US has not yet formally recognized the West Bank a sovereign Israeli territory, we now have agreements with Israel that allowed US taxpayer money to be spent inside of the West Bank on scientific cooperation, and it's something that did not exist before yesterday. So, on all of these to different extents, I am pretty confident that we will see a Biden administration restore US policy back to the status quo hierarchy. What it was before President Trump.
Michael Koplow:
And what that means is the return of a distinction in American eyes between territory inside the Green Line and territory beyond the Green Line. Now, what I don't think we are likely to see, is this the same level of confrontation over settlements and over Israeli actions in the West Bank, as we saw during the Obama administration. I think that first of all as I noted, if Biden is indeed going to spend his political capital on trying to reenter some form of the JCPOA, the Iran Deal, that is of course going to cause tension with Israel and I don't think that a president Biden will to exacerbate tensions with Israel on multiple fronts at once.
Michael Koplow:
Second, Biden does have a very long relationship with Israel and with Israeli leaders. One of the criticisms that people made of president Obama or that I don't think was ... I don't disagree with, but it was certainly a criticism that was out there, was that he didn't feel Israel has Christians. I don't think that anybody believes that about vice president Biden, based on how he speaks about Israel, based on how he relates to Israel, based on how has related to Israeli leaders for decades. And so, I don't think that he is going to want to have a confrontational relationship with an Israeli prime minister, no matter who it is out of the gate.
Michael Koplow:
I also don't think that, within bottomlands, and I can say within democratic foreign policy circles writ large, there's almost unanimity on the idea that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations right now are a bad idea. That they are unlikely to work, that the two sides are way too far apart, that prime minister Netanyahu and President Abbas are both leaders who they have their pros and they have their cons, but nobody believes that the two of them are going to get to any type of successful negotiation. And what that means is that, I don't think a Biden administration is going to push on these issues quite so hard because nobody thinks the deal is in reach.
Michael Koplow:
And that will probably turn the temperature down on them a little bit. With that said, I will be extremely surprised if US policy on settlements and on West Bank territory is not reversed. I'll be very surprised if the US maintains the policy that was signed yesterday about extending scientific cooperation to projects in the West Bank. And as I said, I think we're going to see a return to what US policy was on these issues before. And just to conclude that I'm happy to take as many questions as people have. What this all means for US's revelations, I think is a bit complicated because, as I've said, a Biden administration is likely to take a less confrontational stance with Israel on some of the issues that caused such rancor during the Obama administration.
Michael Koplow:
There is no question that the Trump administration's policies toward Israel, have reset Israeli expectations in an enormous way. The next time that Israelis sit down at the negotiating table with the Palestinians, I have no doubt that they will be taking the Trump plan as the starting point. Whereas for Biden, the Trump plan is going to be really something that get swept off the table right away. Before the Trump administration, there was no Israeli prime minister, and this includes prime minister Netanyahu, who took the position that Israeli settlements would all stay where they are and that every single Israeli living in the West Bank will stay where he or she is, even in the event of a deal.
Michael Koplow:
It is now the position of the Israeli government, that in the event of a deal with the Palestinians, not one Israeli should have to move and not one settlement should have to be evacuated. And that's a position that was also embraced in the Trump plan. So, I think Israeli expectations right now, are not only very far away from Palestinian expectations and Palestinian positions, they are also unprecedentedly far away from where the US will be sitting if we have a president Biden come January 20th. And that gap in basic expectations, is bound to cause some friction. I think that we will definitely see the US and Israel be at odds in some places where they haven't been over the past four years.
Michael Koplow:
And how that gets resolved I think really will depend on a combination of who the prime minister of Israel is and what areas within Israel policy, a potential president Biden deems to be really critical for him to work on. I was not say well know in a week whether we're going to see this play out over the next four year. Actually, I'm not sure we're going to know in a week. But at some point, hopefully in the next month, we will know who is going to be president for the next four years and what policies will follow as a result.
Michael Koplow:
So with that, I will throw things over to Gabriella who I think is going to manage the Q&A.
Gabriella Lieberman:
Yes. Thank you so much Michael for that. That was really educational and I looked at and really enjoyed that. Our first question is going to be from Robert. He asks, will the Biden administration encourage additional Arab States to normalize relations with Israel and support existing normalizations?
Michael Koplow:
Yes. So, vice president Biden has publicly said that he supports these normalization deals. He supports the Abraham Accords and he'd used them as a positive upon which to build. And I have no doubt that a Biden administration will try to build on this record and get more normalization deals between Israel and other Arab States. But the caveat is that the Trump administration has put such a premium on these deals, that they have been willing to to pay a price that I don't think a Biden administration will be willing to pick.
Michael Koplow:
So for instance, the deal with the UAE involves the sale of F-35s to to the UAE and the UAE or the Trump ministration rather, unofficially notified Congress today that they they wish to sell 50 F-35s to UAE, which is the same number of F-35s that the US has sold to Israel. Now, the initial announcement of the Abraham Accords met with some resistance from congressional Democrats over this issue. Not only because there were concerns over whether selling F-35s to the UAE eroded Israel's qualitative military edge, because there were concerns over giving these types of weapons to the UAE, leaving Israel angle out of it.
Michael Koplow:
The UAE in some ways has been a very responsible actor in the region, in other ways has been not quite as responsible. There's reticence I think among Democrats to be giving advanced weaponry to countries that for instance, are bombing civilians in Yemen and Libya. Both of which are things that the UAE has been accused of over the past few years in both of those civil wars. So, to the extent that the new business model that has been set is, a country normalizes with Israel and gets a large arms package from the United States, I don't think a Biden administration is going to be quite so eager to go down that road.
Michael Koplow:
I also note that, I don't think the Israeli government is gone to be quite so eager to go down that road either, if that's the cost. There was a lot of ambiguity when the deal was announced about what the Israeli position would be over the sale of F-35s to the UAE, and it took about a month and a half of constant meetings between the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the Pentagon, before Israel agreed just last weekend to the US sell of F-35s. And of course they agreed after as I said, a month and a half negotiations, over what Israel would get in order to maintain its QME.
Michael Koplow:
But the Israelis weren't thrilled about it, and they weren't thrilled about it despite the fact that the UAE is as far from Israel as Spain is, just to put it into context, how far away it is. The F-35, unless it comes equipped with an external fuel tank, actually doesn't have the range to fly from UAE to Israel. And of course the UAE is a government that has never actually been ... that has never actually been in conflict with Israel. There has never been shots fired between Israel and the UAE in any war in any battle. And even with all that, Israel was red assessed.
Michael Koplow:
Now the F-35 sell has opened up now, the Qataris has officially asked the US for F-35s. I'm sure the Saudis want F-35s, I'm sure the Egyptian are going to ask for F-35s. All of this is going to make Israel somewhat nervous. And so, the combination of that, and the fact that the Biden administration is unlikely to want to see so much proliferation in the Middle East, means that normalization agreements may be negotiated at the US behest, but they may be tougher to get, given the weapon sales angle, will be removed from the equation. So I think that a Biden administration will build upon this but, not with quite the same zeal as the Trump administration has.
Gabriella Lieberman:
Great. And just to follow up on that, Jonathan asks, which nations do you believe that the United States might try to make peace with, and establish full diplomatic relations with, and why?
Michael Koplow:
I assume Israel, not the United States.
Gabriella Lieberman:
Right.
Michael Koplow:
So it's not really a question of which ones the Israel wants, it's of which States are willing to with Israel, right? Israel with normalization deals with everyone. If President Trump is reelected, I expect that we will see a deal with Oman in relatively short order. Probably also deal with Morocco in relatively short order. The big one that's hanging out there, which is also the big prize for Israel, is Saudi Arabia. And that is a lot more complicated on a variety of fronts. First of all, Saudi internal politics weigh against this in a way that they don't with the UAE.
Michael Koplow:
Saudi is a much bigger country. It has a much bigger citizenry, that citizenry is also less homogenous than the Emiratis, and it's also more religious. While my Emirati colleagues tell me in no uncertain terms that the Abraham Accords really are uncontroversial and even welcomed among most Emiratis. That is not the case in Saudi Arabia. There's a bunch of recent polling to suggest that anywhere from 60 to 80% of Saudis, do not support normalization with Israel. In addition, King Salman is the last of four brothers who have all been Kings of Saudi Arabia.
Michael Koplow:
And of the four, he is the one historically, who has been the most hard line against normalization with Israel. And his son, Mohammad bin Salman, who is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, by all accounts is the most eager Saudian leader in history for normalization with Israel. And so that creates a lot of tension. Now, if MBS were the King today, I think this would be easier. It's difficult for me to see this happening while King Salman is still alive. The added variable there is that MBS has done a lot of things that have put him in a precarious position inside of Saudi Arabia, because he has taken on the religious establishment.
Michael Koplow:
He has jailed ... now people remember at the Ritz-Carlton a few years ago, he has jailed a number of members of the Royal family and prominent Saudi business elites. And that of course did not win him any friends. And so, he is unusually dependent on his father's support to maintain his own position and pushing for something like normalization with Israel, while his father is still alive, doesn't the only risk that his father will crash, it also risks his own position inside of Saudi Arabia. And third, because of these politics inside of Saudi Arabia, as opposed to Bahrain, which was able to normalize with Israel ... in return for no concessions on the Israeli-Palestinian front, the Palestinian issue does loom large in Saudi Arabia.
Michael Koplow:
The Saudis take their role as custodians of the two Holy mosques in Mecca and Medina pretty seriously. And they take that role not only as overseeing the mosques, but also making them the de facto leaders of worldwide Islam. And I think that they will need something tangible from Israel on the Israeli-Palestinian front or on Jerusalem, in order to normalize relations. So, all of that makes this a lot more complicated, and even if President Trump is reelected, I don't think we're going to see Saudi normalization right away. I think that's going to take a little bit more time.
Michael Koplow:
And as I said, it's almost certainly going to require some concession from Israel.
Gabriella Lieberman:
Great. Our next question is from Paula, she asks as wonderful as the Trump plan sounded for strong Israel supporters, could there have been any chance that piece could have followed?
Michael Koplow:
No. Quite simply, no. There are a few reasons why. First of all, as I noted, the Palestinians have boycotted the US and the Trump administration since December 6th, 2017, as a result of the Jerusalem Announcement. So, as long as that was going on and the Palestinians make clear starting December, 2017, that they were not going to reverse this position, unless the Trump administration made clear that Jerusalem was to be the capital of both Israel and a future state of Palestine, and that statement was never going to be forthcoming from the Trump administration. They made it clear they would not engage at all. So that's number one.
Michael Koplow:
Number two, the Trump plan is so far out of line with every previous plan that had come before it. And I don't mean American plans, because this is actually the first time the United States has authored its own plan and released it. It was out of line with every previous Israeli offer. And of course the Israeli offers were already at some distance from what the Palestinians are willing to accept. So the idea that you would then take the Trump plan, which on every single final status issue, weighed in not just on Israel's side, but pretty much took the maximal Israeli position on every single final status issue.
Michael Koplow:
The notion that that was somehow going to be a deal that any Palestinian leader could ever agree to, was fanciful. So, I understand from the Israeli perspective, why the Israeli political spectrum embraced the Trump deal. If you can get it, great deal for Israel. This would take me down easily a 30 minute rabbit hole that I won't go down, but the Trump plan was actually providing reasons not great for Israeli security. And if you talk to Israeli security establishment folks, you'll understand why pretty quickly, but as I said, I won't go down a 30 minute diversion. But, leaving the security angle aside, on every other issue, the Trump plan is the Israeli impossible dream.
Michael Koplow:
Stuff that they may have asked for in the past but didn't ever think they would get. So, it's very understandable why the Israelis embraced it and why as I said earlier, any future Israeli prime minister is likely to try and take that as the starting point. But it's a complete no-go from the Palestinian side and so, the question is, what's the purpose? If the purpose was to entirely reset the parameters of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict going forward and try to create a new set of expectations that would then work its way through the system decades, then I understand why you would put the Trump plan out.
Michael Koplow:
If the point of it was actually to get to an agreement between the two sides, it is a completely useless document. And as I said, it's going to make it more complicated going forward, because the same way that President Obama's request for a complete settlement moratorium outside of East Jerusalem in 2009, was a mistake. Because it set for us this maximal position that the Palestinians could never accept less of, right? So, once that nine month moratorium expired, at that point, the Israelis I think rightfully said, "Okay, we agreed to freeze all settlement construction outside Jerusalem. We did it. It led to no negotiation. So we gave it a shot, now we're going to go back to what we always do."
Michael Koplow:
The Palestinians at that point said, "Well, hey, we had this complete moratorium, we can't accept less than what the US demanded." And that basically destroyed any chance of negotiation going forward because, the Palestinians now had a position that was all the way to one extreme that had been endorsed by the US. We got the same thing on the Israeli side. We have a set of positions that are actually far more extreme than that 2009 settlement freeze, and they're in all sorts of areas. And so, no Israeli prime minister is now going to come in and say, "Hey, this was the US vision, but I'm willing to accept less than what the United States thinks we should get."
Michael Koplow:
That's something not going to happen. So, the Trump plan is a complete non-starter and not only is it a non-starter now, it's going to significantly complicate things in the future.
Gabriella Lieberman:
Great. Our next question is from Ira, who asks, you said Biden would go back to the status quo before Trump, do you think he will undo American's recognition of a Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the embassy back to Tel Aviv?
Michael Koplow:
No. He's on the record multiple times, saying that he's going to keep the embassy in Jerusalem. Where I said I think he's going to return things to the status quo is in the US's view of the status of the West Bank. But no, I'm certain that he will not withdraw recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and I'm certain that he will not move the embassy back to Tel Aviv.
Gabriella Lieberman:
Our next question is from Charles, who asks, do you think that Biden will invite Netanyahu to speak before Congress as to Trump? How do you suppose he would be received by a democratic majority given his very warm relationship with Trump?
Michael Koplow:
I don't know that Biden would invite Netanyahu to speak before Congress, unless there was an actual reason to do it. So for instance if there was a Biden peace plan and it was endorsed by the Israeli government, then that would be a reason. But I don't think he will just do it out of the blue, there is still an enormous amount of rancor among Democrats, Congressional Democrats over Netanyahu's speech to Congress in 2015, as the Iran Deal was being debated. So, even if Biden wanted to invite Netanyahu to speak before Congress ... and by the way, that's actually not something that Biden could do, it would have to be a congressional invitation.
Michael Koplow:
There would be some resistance I think to that move among Congressional Democrats as a result of the 2015 speech.
Gabriella Lieberman:
Our next question is from Miriam, who asks, how likely is it that Netanyahu be replaced? And if he is, by whom and what might that mean for Biden if elected?
Michael Koplow:
It's a good question. There are going to be Israeli elections at some point in 2021. I'm fairly certain of that. But as to who will win, that's more difficult. It may be that a year from now or four years from now, prime minister Netanyahu is still prime minister. His main challenger at the moment in the opposition is Yair Lapid. But if you look at current polls inside of Israel, it turns out that the party that is polling second is Yamina, which is headed by Naftali Bennett. Now, Naftali Bennett at this point is polling anywhere between 19 and 22 seats, depending on the poll, compared to ... it could be somewhere between 26 and 29, depending on the poll.
Michael Koplow:
The reason Naftali Bennett is polling so high, is because he is seen by Israelis as being the most credible Israeli politician on how to battle COVID. He was Defense Minister when the pandemic started and he really embraced the role of the IDF and Defense Ministry in handling the pandemic. Netanyahu sidelined the IDF and Defense Ministry from handling the pandemic. All sorts of speculation as to why, it doesn't really matter why, but he did. And then when Bennett was no longer Defense Minister, Bennett spent his time criticizing the Israeli government response since he was now out of the government.
Michael Koplow:
Actually he went so far as to ... he's already published a book about COVID and how to respond to it. So Israelis seen him as the most credible. Now, I don't think those poll numbers for Bennett and Yamina are going to continue beyond COVID. They're certainly COVID driven. So I'll be surprised if whenever the next Israeli election happens, Bennett comes in second place, but he is a serious challenger at the moment to Netanyahu on the right. Yair Lapid is sitting out there in the center. The Israeli left at this point no longer exists, so there really is no candidate on the left.
Michael Koplow:
And Benny Gantz and Kahol Lavan at the moment are polling in nine seats. I'll be surprised if Kahol Lavan even lasts more than one more election, given how they have managed their ... or mismanaged their political fortunes. So, with that landscape, Netanyahu is in a decent spot. I think he's going to have more trouble the way polls are now, constructing a coalition, than he will of maintaining his position as top of the right wing block.
Gabriella Lieberman:
Great. If anyone has any last questions, please put it in the chat. In the meantime, I'll turn to our next question from Mike, who asks, what in your opinion motivated Trump to give Israel what you described as its impossible dream? Was it to placate the right wing Jews, specifically donor Sheldon Adelson and cater to evangelicals?
Michael Koplow:
I think it's more about evangelicals than it is about Sheldon Adelson or more politically conservative American Jews. But I also think that we shouldn't underestimate the role that ambassador Friedman himself has played. He is probably ... and I say this with apologies to my good friend and fellow Brandeis alum, Dan Shapiro, who was the previous ambassador to Israel. Ambassador Friedman is probably the most consequential ambassador to Israel in American history, given the role that he has played in not only implementing American policy in the sphere, but in actually making American policy in the sphere.
Michael Koplow:
I have no doubt that he was the driver behind support for annexation. I have no doubt that he was the driver of the agreement that was signed yesterday, extending scientific cooperation to the West Bank. I have no doubt that he was a driver of many of these policies. So, I think that the combination of ambassador Friedman being extraordinarily influential and having very strong views on what he wanted to see happen, combined with the fact that Trump ... President Trump didn't really like on most issues didn't have really a track record in this arena. I'd be surprised if he knew anything about it before becoming president.
Michael Koplow:
So I don't think he came in with very strong views. And so you had ambassador Friedman pushing him from one side, you had evangelicals pushing as well. And it shouldn't escape notice that President Trump's top advisers on his issue are all American Jews who are politically conservative and particularly push for conservative on this issue itself. So, I think the combination of all those things, has really driven President Trump's policy, and on top of that, as President Trump says publicly all the time, he likes to reverse things that President Obama did, or do things that President Obama did not do.
Michael Koplow:
It's noteworthy that in almost every rally or big speech that President Trump has given since December of 2017, political rallies, one of the things that he brings up at the very top is he fulfilled his promise to move the embassy, something that his predecessors had all said they would do, but didn't do. And he was the first one to do it. And I think he'd liked that narrative.
Gabriella Lieberman:
Okay. Our last question is from Mark, who asks, is Biden particularly close with any political leaders in Israel? Perhaps in blue and white or Labor. What personal connections to Israeli leaders may influence Biden's policy?
Michael Koplow:
So Labor this point, essentially does not exist. You have three members of Knesset from Labor. Two of them went into the government with Netanyahu. One of them did not. Amir Peretz and Itzik Shmuli went in. Merav Michaeli stayed out. So, there really is no Labor anymore. And at the moment, Labor is polling well beyond the threshold. And so, whenever there's the next election, there probably at that point will literally be no more Labor. With Kahol Lavan, that is a party made up of political newcomers, right? Benny Gantz is new to politics. He was not in politics when Biden was vice president or was in the Senate.
Michael Koplow:
The same goes for Gabi Ashkenazi. He may have had interactions with both of them because they were former chiefs of staff, and Benny Gantz in particular, served as defense attache in Israeli embassy in DC, so Biden may know him from that. But I think it's safe to say that the politician with whom Biden has the longest and most familiar relationship is Prime Minister Netanyahu. I said before that I don't think that Biden is going to look to be particularly confrontational with Netanyahu and certainly not out of the gate.
Michael Koplow:
I would think that the prior relationship between the two of them will work to mitigate any open hostilities over policy, certainly at the outset. I don't think that Biden ... because he has this long standing relationship with Netanyahu, wants to pick a fight with him, just because and I don't think Netanyahu is going to look to capitalize on hostility with Biden for his own political fortunes, as he did with Obama, because Biden is a known quantity inside of Israel, and I think it's going to be a lot more difficult to caricature.
Michael Koplow:
That does not mean that there will not be arguments or disagreements. But both Biden and Netanyahu have had publicly ... I think publicly told the story of how Netanyahu has a signed picture on his desk from Biden that says something to the effect of "Dear Bibi, I disagree with every word you say, but I love you anyway." And I think that that's the tone that will be set certainly from Biden at the outset. And Netanyahu is in a spot politically at the moment where I don't think it's going to be to his benefit to declare open warfare on a Biden administration, even over policies that he does not particularly like.
Michael Koplow:
So, as I said, tension will definitely crop up, and I think probably build up over time, but I don't think we're going to see a blow up of any sort at the outset, and a lot of that will be due to this long standing relationship between Biden and Netanyahu.
Nathan Miller:
Okay. Thank you so much Michael for speaking to us today and sharing your insights and to Gabriella for moderating the Q&A. I put this in the chat, but just to reiterate, our next virtual conversation is navigating Jewish and Zionist identities and liberal communities with Dr. Rachel Fish. We have the link in the chat and please sign up it's November 18th at 7:00 PM. And thank you for joining us tonight. Have a great rest of your night.
Michael Koplow:
Thanks everyone.