Tag Archives: Israel

Israel to declare air defense shield fully operational

An inactive version of Israel's air defense system, David's Sling, jointly developed with the United States, is seen at Hatzor air base near Tel Aviv

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s multi-tier air defense missile system will be fully operational early next month with the deployment of the David’s Sling interceptor, a senior Israeli air force officer said on Monday.

David’s Sling, designed to shoot down rockets fired from 100 to 200 kilometers away, will be the final piece of a shield that already includes short-range Iron Dome and long-range Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 missiles.

“In the next two weeks we will declare operational the David’s Sling and at that time we will have completed our multi-tier (defense capability),” said the officer who could not be identified under military rules.

“I’m sure that together with the Iron Dome and the Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 it will enhance our ability to deal with threats,” he added.

Israel used Iron Dome extensively to intercept rockets fired by Palestinian militants in the 2014 Gaza war, and the Arrow missiles were developed with an Iranian missile threat in mind.

David’s Sling, developed and manufactured jointly by Israel’s state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd and the U.S. Raytheon Co, would likely be used to intercept projectiles fired by the Iranian-backed Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, which last fought a war with Israel in 2006.

The Israeli military said it used an Arrow-2 on Friday to destroy an anti-aircraft missile fired from Syria after Israeli aircraft carried out strikes there.

Israel has mounted dozens of air raids to prevent weapons smuggling to Hezbollah, which is fighting rebels alongside the Syrian army. However, the interception of a missile making its way over the Syrian border was an uncommon incident.

(Reporting by Ori Lewis; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Julia Glover)

Senior U.N. official quits after ‘apartheid’ Israel report pulled

U.N. Under-Secretary General and ESCWA Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf speaks during a news conference announcing her resignation from the United Nations in Beirut, Lebanon, March 17, 2017. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi

BEIRUT/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A senior U.N. official resigned on Friday over the withdrawal of a report accusing Israel of imposing an “apartheid regime” on Palestinians, saying “powerful member states” pressured the world body and its chief with “vicious attacks and threats.”

United Nations Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary for the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), Rima Khalaf, announced her resignation at a news conference in Beirut after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asked for the report to be taken off the ESCWA website.

ESCWA, which comprises 18 Arab states, published the report on Wednesday and said it was the first time a U.N. body had clearly charged that Israel “has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole.”

Israel fiercely rejects the allegation and likened the report to Der Sturmer – a Nazi propaganda publication that was strongly anti-Semitic. The United States, an ally of Israel, had said it was outraged and demanded the report be withdrawn.

“I do not find it surprising that such member states, who now have governments with little regard for international norms and values of human rights, will resort to intimidation when they find it hard to defend their unlawful policies and practices,” Khalaf, of Jordan, wrote to Guterres.

“It is only normal for criminals to pressure and attack those who advocate the cause of their victims,” Khalaf wrote in the resignation letter, seen by Reuters, adding that she stands by the ESCWA report.

Israel and the United States did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Khalaf’s letter.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said earlier on Friday that Khalaf’s resignation was appropriate and Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said it was “long overdue.

“Anti-Israel activists do not belong in the UN,” Danon said in a statement.”

“U.N. agencies must do a better job of eliminating false and biased work, and I applaud the Secretary-General’s decision to distance his good office from it,” Haley said in a statement.

The report was published without consultation with the U.N. secretariat, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric had said.

“This is not about content, this is about process,” Dujarric told reporters in New York on Friday.

“The secretary-general cannot accept that an under-secretary general or any other senior U.N. official that reports to him would authorize the publication under the U.N. name, under the U.N. logo, without consulting the competent departments and even himself,” he said.

One of the authors of the report was Richard Falk, a former U.N. human rights investigator for the Palestinian territories, whom the United States has accused of being biased against Israel.

The ESCWA report said it had established on the “basis of scholarly inquiry and overwhelming evidence, that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid.”

While the report was taken off the ECWAS website, Khalaf told reporters: “Let me be clear, the report was issued … and has impacts. The member states received copies of this report. And it is available.”

(Reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut and Michelle Nichols in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr and Diane Craft)

Israel intercepts missile fired at its air force in Syria

By Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli military said it shot down one of numerous anti-aircraft missiles launched on Friday at its air force which was operating in Syria, in a rare such incident that spilled over into neighboring countries.

The Syrian army said it had shot down an Israeli jet during the operation. Israel denied this, saying that all its aircraft had returned unscathed.

“At no point was the safety of Israeli civilians or the IAF (Israeli Air Force) aircraft compromised,” an Israeli military spokesman said.

Rocket sirens had sounded in the early morning in Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank and two Reuters witnesses heard an explosion a few minutes later.

The military said in its statement that one of the anti-aircraft missiles had been intercepted. The blast was heard as far away as Jerusalem, dozens of miles away. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

A Jordanian civil defense source said a projectile had landed in a village on the outskirts of the northern Jordanian city of Irbid, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Syrian and Israeli borders, causing light damage.

The source said army engineers were examining the object, believed to be fired from Syrian territory in the direction of Israel. Video posted on social media purported to show remnants of a rocket, possibly parts of the intercepting missile, though Reuters was unable to independently verify the footage.

“Overnight IAF (Israeli Air Force) aircraft targeted several targets in Syria. Several anti-aircraft missiles were launched from Syria following the mission and IDF (Israel Defence Force) Aerial Defence Systems intercepted one of the missiles,” the Israeli military said in its statement.

Israel has carried out dozens of strikes to prevent weapons smuggling to the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is fighting rebels alongside the Syrian army. However, the interception of a missile making its way over the Syrian border was an uncommon incident.

Syria’s army high command said in a statement on Friday that Israeli jets had breached Syrian air space early in the morning and attacked a military target near Palmyra, in what it described as an act of aggression that aided Islamic State.

It said its air defenses shot down one of the Israeli jets over what it called “occupied ground” and damaged another. Israel denies this.

Israeli media said the Syrian army had fired surface-to-air missiles at the Israeli aircraft. The military would not provide further details on the targets it struck, nor on the amount or type of projectiles launched at its forces.

An Israeli military source said Israel’s Arrow ballistic missile shield had identified an “incoming threat” and shot down one of the projectiles.

Last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss what he charged were Iran’s attempts to establish a permanent military foothold in Syria.

Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy, has been Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s staunchest backer and has provided militia fighters to help him. Israel is concerned Hezbollah, with which it fought a war in 2006, is trying to obtain sophisticated weapons it could use against Israel.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Jordan, Angus McDowall in Beirut; Sabreen Taha in Jerusalem and Jeffrey Heller in Modiin; Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Israel’s Netanyahu repeats promise to build new West Bank settlement

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he would honor his commitment to build a new settlement in the occupied West Bank, the first in two decades.

The Israeli leader made the remarks hours before meeting with Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy. Netanyahu said he hoped an agreement could be reached with Washington on future Israeli settlements on land Palestinians want for a state.

“To the settlers of Amona, I repeat, I gave you a commitment to build a new settlement and I will honor my commitment,” Netanyahu said in public remarks at the start of a cabinet meeting.

The Amona settlement, comprising some 40 homes, was built in 1995 without government authorization. It was razed last month after the Israeli supreme court ruled the homes must be removed because they were built on privately owned Palestinian land.

Netanyahu is under pressure from his far-right coalition partners to follow through on the promise to Amona’s residents. However, at a meeting in Washington, Trump asked him to “hold back on settlements for a little bit.”

“We are in talks with the White House and our intention is to reach an agreed policy for building in settlements which is agreeable to us, not only to the Americans,” Netanyahu said.

A new settlement would be the first built in the West Bank since 1999. Some 385,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank which is also home to 2.8 million Palestinians. Another 200,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014 and settlements are one of the most heated issues. Palestinians want the West Bank and East Jerusalem for their own state, along with the Gaza Strip.

Most countries consider Israeli settlements, built on land captured in the 1967 Middle East war, to be illegal. Israel disagrees, citing historical and political links to the land, as well as security interests.

In a rare meeting for a U.S. envoy, settler leaders said they met with Greenblatt on Thursday. On his first visit to the Middle East as Trump’s envoy, Greenblatt also met with Jordanian King Abdullah in Amman and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. His meeting with Netanyahu will be their second this week.

Abbas told the Qatari newspaper Al-Watan in an interview that Greenblatt did not make any proposals and had come to listen and report back to Trump.

“When we meet the American president there will be clear answers to the things he has heard from us and it should be enough for him to get a clear view … and propose suitable solutions,” Abbas was quoted as saying.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell, writing by Ori Lewis, editing by Larry King)

In week of Middle East talks, Trump envoy avoids disruption

Jason Greenblatt (L), U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem March 13, 2017. Courtesy Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv/Handout via REUTERS

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy has spent the week shuttling between Jerusalem, Ramallah and the Jordanian capital Amman on his first official visit to the region, pursuing quiet diplomacy and avoiding controversy.

A real estate lawyer who has worked for Trump for 20 years, Jason Greenblatt has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah and other senior officials during a busy round of talks that U.S. diplomats have described as a “listening tour”.

Rather than some of the bold pronouncements Trump himself has made on the region – last month he said he didn’t mind if there was a one-state or two-state solution to the conflict — Greenblatt, 49, has been circumspect, issuing a few tweets but not speaking to the media.

“President Abbas and I discussed how to make progress toward peace, building capacity of Palestinian security forces and stopping incitement,” he wrote on Twitter, preceded by a picture of him shaking hands warmly with the Palestinian leader.

The readout from the Palestinians and King Abdullah after their meetings was positive, if largely sticking to standard diplomatic pronouncements about the importance of peace negotiations and their ability to transform the region.

Social media commentators were quick to point out that Greenblatt, an Orthodox Jew, had shown a notable degree of religious flexibility during his visit that may reflect a desire to be open and diplomatic: he has not worn his kippa, a skull cap worn by religious Jewish men, all week.

In official pictures, Greenblatt, a father of six who studied at a Talmudic high school and Yeshiva University, is usually seen wearing a black kippa, the type favor by devout men. Before landing in Israel, he posted a picture of his prayer shawl and other religious accoutrements.

“ULTIMATE DEAL”?

One of the criticisms Palestinians have made of Trump is that he is too pro-Israel, especially with his promise during the campaign to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and his soft-pedalling on Israeli settlement-building.

The settlements are built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – seized by Israel in a 1967 war and occupied for nearly 50 years – where Palestinians want to establish their state and capital.

Since taking office, Trump has modified his positions to an extent, rowing back on any quick embassy move and calling on Netanyahu during their White House meeting last month to “hold back on settlements for a little bit”.

The main point of discussion during five hours of talks between Greenblatt and Netanyahu on Tuesday was settlements, an Israeli official said, with the two sides seeking to come to an accommodation over how much Israel can build and where.

Netanyahu and Greenblatt will meet for more talks later on Thursday, before the U.S. envoy returns to Washington.

“Our intention is to reach an agreed policy for building in settlements which is agreeable to us, not only to the Americans,” Netanyahu said ahead of the meeting.

“Of course, this will help Israel after a period of many years during which we were not involved in such processes.”

The Obama administration said Israel’s settlement building was jeopardizing peace efforts, and Abbas has said they must stop before negotiations can resume.

U.S. officials indicated that Greenblatt, who is officially Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, would report back directly to the president on his trip, rather than to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

They said it was the first of numerous visits he is expected to make to the region as the Trump administration pursues its goal of reviving negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and striking what Trump calls “the ultimate deal”.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Trump Middle East envoy meets Palestinian leader Abbas

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy held his first talks on Tuesday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, amid Palestinian concerns that the new administration in Washington is more favorably disposed toward Israel.

Jason Greenblatt’s talks with Abbas took place in Ramallah, the Palestinian seat of government, a day after he held a lengthy meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

“President Abbas & I discussed how to make progress toward peace, building capacity of Palestinian security forces & stopping incitement,” Greenblatt tweeted after the meeting.

In a separate statement issued by the U.S. Consulate General, the two men “reaffirmed the commitment of both the Palestinian Authority and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians”.

Abbas stressed that the Palestinian strategic choice was to achieve a two-state solution, the statement added.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014. Since his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump has been ambivalent about a two-state solution, the mainstay of U.S. policy in the region for the past two decades.

“I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like … I can live with either one,” Trump told a Feb. 15 news conference during a visit to Washington by Netanyahu, causing consternation across the Arab world and in many European capitals.

However, Trump last Friday held his first telephone conversation with Abbas since becoming president and invited him to the White House.

Tuesday’s statement said Abbas had told Greenblatt he believed that under Trump’s leadership “a historic peace deal was possible”.

Abbas and Greenblatt also discussed plans to strengthen the Palestinian economy and the importance of ensuring economic opportunities for Palestinians, the statement said.

On Monday, Netanyahu and Greenblatt discussed Israel’s settlement building “with the hope of reaching a formula that will aim to promote peace and security”, the Israeli leader’s office said.

One of the most heated issues between Israel and the Palestinians is Israel’s building of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory the Palestinians want for their own future state along with the Gaza Strip.

Greenblatt, a longtime top lawyer in Trump’s company, also serves as the president’s special negotiator for trade deals, among other responsibilities.

(Reporting by Ori Lewis; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Israel shuts Palestinian map office citing sovereignty breach

Israeli border police officers stand guard outside the building where Israeli security officers closed a Palestinian map office complying with an Israeli police order to close the office, in the Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel ordered the closure of an office in Arab East Jerusalem on Tuesday as it was suspected of being funded by the Palestinian Authority and involved with monitoring the sale of Palestinian property to Jews, police said.

Israel forbids any official activity by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, saying it breaches Israel’s sovereignty over the city, which it has declared its indivisible capital, a move not recognized internationally.

Israel’s internal security minister said the office, which drafts maps, was “monitoring and documenting” Palestinian-owned land in East Jerusalem, scrutinizing changes Israel has made to the terrain and passing on the names of landowners planning to sell.

“Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan ordered the closure of the Palestinian map office which has resumed operations in Beit Hanina in Jerusalem,” a police statement said.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat called the closure a “provocative act” and part of an effort by Israel “to erase any Palestinian presence in the city”.

However, in a statement Erdan said: “The Palestinian map office is part of the PA’s plan to harm our sovereignty in Jerusalem and to threaten Arabs selling real estate to Jews in the city. I will continue to act firmly to prevent any Palestinian government foothold in Jerusalem.”

The office, in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood in the northern part of Jerusalem, is run by geographer Khalil Tafakji. Police said that a 65-year-old Jerusalem resident was arrested and many documents and computers were seized.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, together with the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israel occupied East Jerusalem after capturing it in a 1967 war, a move not recognized internationally.

Since annexing East Jerusalem in 1980, Israel has greatly expanded its presence in that part of the city, building settlements and major pieces of infrastructure. Private Jewish groups have also sought to buy up Palestinian homes in eastern neighborhoods to expand the Jewish presence in the east.

(Reporting by Ammar Awad, Writing by Ori Lewis, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

Iran’s presence in Syrian blocks peace deal, Netanyahu tells Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow, Russia, March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Pavel Golovkin/Pool

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday there could never be peace in Syria as long as there was an Iranian presence there.

“We discussed at length the matter of Iran, its objectives and intentions in Syria, and I clarified that there cannot be a peace deal in Syria when Iran is there and declares its intention to destroy Israel,” Netanyahu said in footage supplied by his office after their meeting.

Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy, has been embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s staunchest backer and has provided militia fighters to help him in the country’s civil war.

“(Iran) is arming itself and its forces against Israel including from Syria territory and is, in fact, gaining a foothold to continue the fight against Israel,” he said in reply to a reporter’s question.

“There cannot be peace when they continue the war and therefore they have to be removed.”

Russia, also Assad’s ally, is seen as holding the balance of power in achieving a deal on Syria’s future. In Geneva last week, the first U.N.-led Syria peace talks in a year ended without a breakthrough.

Israeli leaders have pointed to Tehran’s steadily increasing influence in the region during the six-year-old Syrian conflict, whether via its own Revolutionary Guard forces or Shi’ite Muslim proxies, especially Hezbollah.

Last year, Avi Dichter, the chair of Israel’s foreign affairs and defense committee, said Iran had tried several times in the past to move forces into the Syrian Golan Heights, next to territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Dichter said those moves were repelled, but gave no details.

Netanyahu has said that Israel has carried out dozens of strikes to prevent weapons smuggling to the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah via Syria. Two years ago, Israel and Russia agreed to coordinate military actions over Syria in order to avoid accidentally trading fire.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; editing by Andrew Roche)

Israel’s women combat soldiers on frontline of battle for equality

A female Israeli soldier from the Haraam artillery battalion takes part in a training session in Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defence technique, at a military base in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Nir Elias

By Yuval Ben-David

ISRAELI MILITARY BASE, Golan Heights(Reuters) – Not far from the Syrian border, two Israeli soldiers – a man and a woman – faced off in a training session of Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defense technique.

“I want you to be aggressive, give him the fight of his life,” physical education officer Lotem Stapleton urged the woman, a soldier in the Haraam artillery battalion, the Israeli military’s longest-running mixed-gender combat battalion.

As the world marks International Women’s Day on Wednesday, whose theme this year focuses on “women in the changing world of work”, the Israeli military says it is ahead of the curve in providing combat roles for female soldiers.

At an army base – which under military censorship rules could not be identified – in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Stapleton shouted encouragement at a pack of 13 soldiers who confronted a stream of “enemy combatants” in a training circuit.

“Today, 85 percent of (combat) positions are open to women. We are also talking about opening more and more positions,” Stapleton said.

The Haraam battalion began accepting women in 2000. Overall, female soldiers now make up 7 percent of the fighting ranks in the Israeli military, where men and women are conscripted at the age of 18.

Men serve for three years and women for two. Israel’s Arab citizens and ultra-Orthodox Jewish community are largely exempted from military service.

“I think that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is very advanced by giving women equal opportunities,” Lieutenant-Colonel Oshrat Bachar, an adviser to the office of the chief of staff on gender issues, told Reuters at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.

“I believe that we are much more advanced than other armies in the world because (service) is mandatory and of course because we believe in equal rights,” she said.

Rachel Fenta, a female combatant in the Haraam battalion, said she spent a year sitting at a desk before she became determined to join a fighting unit.

“I wanted to test my limits,” she said.

Matan Paull, a commanding officer in the battalion, said female combatants were generally more creative and mentally flexible than their male counterparts. But he said the women tended to get injured more easily.

Mai Ofir, another female member of the unit, would agree.

“Our bodies aren’t built the same,” she said. “But just as a guy can shoot a rocket, so can a woman.”

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Alison Williams)

Call from Trump interrupts Israeli police questioning Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem March 5, 2017. REUTERS/Abir Sultan/Pool

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A phone call from U.S. President Donald Trump interrupted a police inquiry into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on Monday being questioned for a fourth time over suspicions of corruption.

Not long after sitting down with police investigators at his residence in Jerusalem, one aide said, Netanyahu briefly excused himself to speak with Trump.

“The two leaders spoke at length about the dangers posed by the nuclear deal with Iran… and about the need to work together to counter those dangers,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement issued just before details of the police probe led prime time news.

Netanyahu, 67, is a suspect in two cases, one involving the receipt of gifts from businessmen and the other related to conversations he held with an Israeli newspaper publisher about limiting competition in the news sector in exchange for more positive coverage.

No charges have been brought against Netanyahu, who has been in power since 2009 and has denied wrongdoing.

A police spokeswoman said a statement would be released after the session. “We are in the final stages,” Police chief Roni Elsheich told reporters earlier about the investigation.

Once it is complete, police will decide whether to drop the case or recommend the attorney general bring charges.

As speculation bubbles, politicians from across the spectrum have begun maneuvering, believing early elections will probably have to be called if Netanyahu is indicted.

Such a move would most likely lead to his resignation – in 1993 the Supreme Court set a precedent for ministers to step down if they are charged with corruption.

It is possible someone from his Likud party could replace Netanyahu without a new vote, but many analysts think it unlikely, predicting an election would have to be called for September or November, depending on developments.

The opposition Labour party will hold primaries in July, former defense minister Moshe Yaalon has launched his own party and Avi Dichter, the former head of the Shin Bet intelligence agency and a senior member of Likud, said on Saturday he would consider running for the party leadership.

“I am here to lead and will undoubtedly run for Likud leadership and the premiership,” Dichter was quoted as saying, comments his spokesman said were not a challenge to Netanyahu and referred to future primaries.

SHAKE-UP?

To analysts, the rumblings are clear and foreshadow change after 20 years of Netanyahu dominating the landscape.

“Active politicians and those on the benches waiting to enter, all of them have concluded that early elections are coming because of the investigation,” Menachem Klein, a politics professor at Bar-Ilan University, told Reuters.

“They are starting to prepare themselves.”

Opinion polls show Yair Lapid, the head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, as the strongest candidate for prime minister if Netanyahu goes, but there are a host of others nipping at his heels. Other polls show Netanyahu remains the most popular politician.

In recent weeks, Netanyahu has visited Britain, the United States and Australia. Trips are planned to Russia, China and India. Some critics suggest the travel is a way of delaying questioning. Others say it is about appearing statesman-like.

“His junkets to far-flung places and visits with the leaders of world powers are intended to persuade Israelis that he’s the be-all and end-all,” columnist Yossi Verter wrote in Haaretz. “The deeper the investigations, the more he’ll be in the air.”

Netanyahu’s opponents name a number of party rivals bidding to replace him, including Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Culture Minister Miri Regev and Transport Minister Yisrael Katz. Naftali Bennett of the far-right Jewish Home is seen as someone who could switch to Likud to try to lead.

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and John Stonestreet)