Anshel Pfeffer | The Spectator columnists & writers

The odd couple: Israel and Turkey’s tentative alliance

Jerusalem On Friday night, when the Israeli government usually shuts down for Shabbat, the Prime Minister’s office issued an emergency briefing. An attack on Israeli tourists in Istanbul was ‘imminent’, it said. Israelis in Turkey were ordered to stay in their hotel rooms for fear of assassins, sent by Iran. There was no attack that night, as it happened, but the threat to the many Israelis in Turkey remains. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has become increasingly enraged by Mossad’s assassinations of IRGC officers in Iran, and decided that the best and easiest way to get revenge is to target the thousands of Israelis in Istanbul. Both Turkish and Israeli intelligence confirm this. This is not as strange as it might sound.

Is a return to power in Netanyahu’s grasp?

Jerusalem ‘Netanyahu’s coming back soon, and he’ll be back with a vengeance!’ Simcha Rothman’s eyes flashed as he made his bold prediction. The normally mild-mannered lawyer, an ultra-nationalist Knesset member, was convinced. ‘He’s coming back and it’s all the left-wing’s fault for demonising him. If it wasn’t for them, the right-wing would have found a different leader by now. But the left made him into an icon and much more dangerous.’ Will Rothman be vindicated soon? It’s been a year since Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, was forced into opposition by an eclectic coalition of parties united only by their determination to keep him out office. At 72, and 35 years after entering politics (15 of which he served as prime minister), his desire for power is unabated.

How Israel’s Prime Minister got burnt by bread

Jerusalem For nearly ten months now, ever since his surprising elevation to the Israeli prime minister’s office, Naftali Bennett has been focused mainly on one thing. He has been trying to prove to Israelis that he can be every bit the master statesman his predecessor, the eternal Benjamin Netanyahu was. And by all accounts that has worked well. He’s had two successful meetings with Joe Biden and met twice with Vladimir Putin as well, the second of those meetings, a surprising flight to Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine began, was made in the hope of brokering a ceasefire between the two countries. He charmed world leaders with ‘green tech’ ideas at the environment summit in Glasgow and went on historic visits, the first official ones by an Israeli prime minister, to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Israel’s Arab-Sunni alliance is piling pressure on Iran

The world’s eyes are, naturally, all on Ukraine. But elsewhere in Europe, diplomats are locked in a series of talks to prevent an altogether different war in another region. In a hotel in Vienna, negotiators from Britain, Germany, France, Russia and China have been meeting their Iranian counterparts. In an adjacent hotel, negotiators from the United States are waiting to see Iran’s latest proposals. This is the eighth — and perhaps the last — round of talks which have gone on intermittently for the past ten months over the potential return of the US to the Iranian nuclear agreement, which Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from in 2018. The expectation last week was that a deal was about to be reached: Joe Biden had already made it clear he was determined to salvage his old boss, Barack Obama’s main foreign policy legacy — engagement with Iran.

Can a third dose of vaccine stave off Israel’s fourth wave?

Jerusalem I thought I’d found the most efficient small clinic in Jerusalem, a quarter of an hour’s drive from my home. For months, I’ve been going there for testing, with no fuss or waiting time. At the end of last week, the government authorised the third ‘booster’ dose of Covid vaccine for over-forties. I made my appointment for a Sunday afternoon and soon found out how things had changed. The car park was packed. Inside the clinic, in the corridor leading to the vaccination cubicles, matters were even worse: several people had been given online appointments for third doses for the same time. It’s a far cry from the first vaccine rollout just eight months ago, in which sports stadiums and city squares were converted into mass jabbing centres.

Netanyahu’s toxic legacy

A week ago Israel was about to have a new government supported by right-wing, left-wing, centrist and Arab parties which was to concentrate on a 'civilian agenda' and 'reconciliation'. Five days of internecine violence shattered that illusion. It’s still Netanyahu’s Israel. I’ve yet to see real evidence Netanyahu somehow engineered these dual crises in Gaza and between Jews and Arabs in Israel but it’s a direct result of his policies. He inherited in 2009 the previous government policies of blockading Gaza but in 12 years did nothing to change it. In regard to Jewish-Arab relations, Netanyahu did everything to exacerbate generations-old hatreds between communities, not because he’s a racist, but because an us-against-them mindset held his electoral base together.

Palestinians in Jerusalem live in a strange limbo

Jerusalem Thomas Friedman has a lot to answer for. The New York Times’s oracle has ruined, through overuse in his columns, the best source of local knowledge for journalists: the cab driver. No other hack can now quote his driver for fear of colleagues’ ridicule. Which is a pity, because the cab drivers in Jerusalem are those rare creatures who not only regularly cross between the three deeply divided cities — Zionist Jerusalem, ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem and Palestinian Jerusalem — but also converse freely with the denizens of all three. I wouldn’t be caught dead, of course, committing the cliché of quoting my driver, which was lucky because the one who drove me to Damascus Gate on Monday promised that by the end of the week, when the holy month of Ramadan is over, ‘the kids will be back in school and people will be back at work and all the violence will calm down’.

Spectator Out Loud

Philip Eade, Dominic Green, Anshel Pfeffer and Lionel Shriver

32 min listen

Spectator Out Loud

Philip Eade, Dominic Green, Anshel Pfeffer and Lionel Shriver

32 min listen

On this week's episode, Philip Eade, biographer to Prince Philip, reads his obituary of the Prince. We're also joined by Dominic Green, Spectator USA's Life and Arts Editor, who reads his article on Prince Harry's new job. Anshel Pfeffer reports on life in Israel under the vaccine passport; and Lionel Shriver on the West's self-doubt and who stands to benefit.

In Israel, vaccine passports are already redundant

Jerusalem The vaccination centre where I got my jabs was in the cavernous foyer of the Jerusalem Arena, Israel’s largest indoor sports venue. Through the locked glass doors, I could see the seats where my 15-year-old and I spent so many hours cheering on our basketball team. Putting my ear to the door, I could hear the players practising. Last week, we were finally back in the stands after a year’s absence. Fans were allowed in, at quarter of the arena’s capacity. After showing my season ticket, I was then asked for my ‘green pass’, which proves I have been vaccinated. My son, too young for vaccination, had to queue outside for a quick Covid test before joining me. In the month since I downloaded my vaccination passport to my smartphone, this was only the second time I’d been asked to present it.

Netanyahu’s shot at election success

For Israeli critics of Benjamin Netanyahu, myself included, these are rather difficult times. It’s hard for us, or anyone, to deny that he appears to be leading the world in vaccinations against Covid-19. In less than four weeks, two million Israelis — my parents and many friends among them — have received their inoculations. A project spearheaded by the Prime Minister himself promises a return to almost normal life. I’m under 50 and have no underlying illnesses, but am still confident of getting my own vaccine in a couple of weeks. Our world-beating jabbing speed means we have covered 20 per cent of the population. Britain, which has made far more progress than any other European country, has covered less than 5 per cent.

With Trump’s endorsement, Netanyahu may survive

Benjamin Netanyahu’s face at the online campaign event his Likud party hosted on Wednesday afternoon was pale and drawn. A new series of allegations was coming out from the legal authorities, pounced upon by an eager press, and it was at the worst possible timing. Less than three weeks before the election on April 9, the mysterious sale of shares in his American cousin’s company that had netted him nearly $4 million in 2010, was coming to light. When had he bought the shares? With whose money? Why hadn’t reported his holdings in a conflict of interest memo? And was the fact that the company had been bought by a major supplier of a German shipyard which builds submarines for the Israeli Navy, connected to Netanyahu’s controversial decision to expand the underwater forces? In an attempt to wrest the news-agenda away from his financial dealings, the prime minister launched in to a tirade against his main challenger Benny Gantz.

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