No longer under the surface: 8 things to know for February 25

1. Have mercy: While Israel and the Jewish Diaspora have been wringing their hands over the Otzma Yehudit party, tensions have been roiling just below the surface over the Temple Mount.

• After rioters managed to break into the Bab al-Rahm or Gate of Mercy complex, which is no longer an actual gate but rather a section of the compound wall sealed since 2003, Israel has apparently allowed the area to remain re-opened, while making do with briefly arresting some officials.
• Israel Hayom’s Nadav Shragai writes that once it became clear that the order to seal the compound related to it being run by a Hamas body that apparently no longer exists, “the political leadership, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, allowed Jordan … to submit plans for renovating the site, which will return to Muslim hands anyway.”
• ToI’s Avi Issacharoff notes that the move is being seen as a major victory for Palestinians and Jordan, with Netanyahu’s government walking away with its tail between its legs.

2. Blame Jordan: Jordan is being seen as the main instigator of the tensions.

• Issacharoff writes that “this looks like a Jordanian attempt to signal unity with the PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, regarding control over the Temple Mount and Jerusalem, coming ahead of plans by US President Donald Trump’s administration to unveil its peace proposal, the so-called ‘deal of the century’ that Abbas has made plain he intends to reject.”
• Haaretz’s Amos Harel notes that the Temple Mount tensions are just one of a series of moves that could add up to a serious conflagration with the Palestinians ahead of elections, from tax cuts to the PA to a crackdown on prisoners.
• “The Palestinians themselves, and even Jordan, are responsible for some of these developments, but it seems the Israeli leadership is marching into a potential crisis with its eyes wide open,” he writes.

3. Fights on the right: Walla news reports that the Americans have decided to release their peace plan after Israeli elections but before a new government is formed, likely making the plan a central point of coalition negotiations.

• Analyst Tal Shalev, writing for the site, reports that though the plan is slated to be the friendliest toward Israel in some 25 years, Netanyahu is worried about it messing with his re-election plans and leaving him open to attack on the right.
• She writes that, according to Israeli sources, he has used US Ambassador Ron Dermer to rally to his side evangelical Trump supporters with the message that “If something harms Netanyahu, it will harm you too,” though it’s unclear if the threat is directed at right-wing rivals or the White House.
• Nonetheless, New Right leader Naftali Bennett went on the attack Sunday, claiming that Netanyahu is in cahoots with the Americans to divide Jerusalem. Netanyahu hit back that Bennett is confused and under pressure.
• “The verbal assaults between [Bennett and Netanyahu] exposed a stiff, deep battle raging under the surface between the two over votes on the right,” the paper’s Moran Azoulay writes.

4. Another useless conference: Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and other members of the peace plan/Iran team are in the region this week, reportedly to gauge support among Arab allies for their peace plan.

• A stop in Israel is not officially on the schedule.
• The trip will come as the Arab League and EU hold a first-ever high-level summit in Egypt, days after countries from both bodies refused to send high-level delegations to Poland for a summit on essentially the same subjects.
• Mideast peace, Yemen, Iran and more are expected to be on the agenda, but much like the Poland confab, many are seeing the meeting as little more than an attempt at some meaningless muscle-flexing, this time by Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
• “I personally do not expect much from this summit. It is too big to have the participants agree on any of the issues that are on the table for discussion,” Doha-based researcher Marwan Kabalan tells Al-Jazeera.
• Jordanian expert Mahjoob Zweiri tells the site that the conference is “insignificant.”
• “For the past 20 years, none of these summits or conferences actually led to any serious outcomes,” he says.

5. Racists, meh: A poll published in Israel Hayom shows Netanyahu’s Likud Party at 31 seats, indicating that his support for former Kahanists entering the Knesset hasn’t dinged him too badly.

• The United Right (Jewish Home, Otzma Yehudit) gets eight seats in the poll, which also shows Blue and White leading the pack with 36 seats, but according to the paper, not enough natural partners to form a coalition.
• But “if right-wing voters can be convinced to move to Gantz and Lapid, a changing of the guard will be in their hands,” analyst Mati Tuchfeld writes.

6. Harder job: Netanyahu is still taking heat for his move to bring the Kahanists in.

• Haaretz reports on a letter from 90 Orthodox rabbis slamming Netanyahu for engineering their possible entry into the Knesset, calling it a “fierce denunciation.”
• Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the head of Reform Jewry in the US, says Netanyahu’s move has made his job of defending Israel to critics much more difficult.
• “We stand up for Israel every day, everywhere. Certain criticisms of Israeli policies are understood and legitimate. But we are fighting every day for there to be more support and more understanding, and this is absolutely a very serious blow to the case that we all make,” he tells ToI’s Eric Cortellessa.

7. Money for racists and hate for free: Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Otzma Yehudit party tells ToI’s Jacob Magid that critics have nothing on them, and are only blackballing them because of support for things that happened decades ago with assassinated extremist rabbi Meir Kahane.

• “They’re bringing up things that are from more than 30 years ago, when it’s clear that we’re not in the same place anymore,” Ben Gvir says.
• But an expose in Yedioth goes through all the various connections showing how the party’s leaders have maintained not only an ideological connection to the banned Kach organization, but also a financial one.
• Among others things, the paper notes that one of Kach’s still-existing nonprofits, the Jewish Idea Yeshiva, is listed as a terror group in the US but continues to operate in Israel. Among the group’s board members: Otzma Yehudit leaders Michael Ben-Ari and Baruch Marzel.

7 ארגון #4 ברשת הכהניסטית הוא "ישיבת הרעיון". הישיבה (רשומה כעמותה) הוקמה בשנות ה80 על ידי מאיר כהנא וממשיכה עד היום להפיץ את משנתו. בין מייסדי הישיבה גם מיכאל בן-ארי ומרזל. הישיבה מופיעה ברשימת ארגוני הטרור בארה"ב כשם נרדף לארגון הטרור כהנא חי אבל ממשיכה לפעול בישראל >> pic.twitter.com/eDVv90BZMt

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— HaBloc | הבלוק הדמוקרטי (@HablocOrg) February 25, 2019

• And according to the paper, “While AIPAC is expressing shock, much of the money for these groups comes from US Jews.”

8. Nattiv boy makes good: Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv won an Oscar for his short film “Skin” on Sunday night.

• The 20-minute film, about a gang war that breaks out in a small town after a black man smiles at a white child at a supermarket, has been developed into a full-length feature by the same name, also directed by Nattiv.
• While the movie is not technically Israeli, the win is celebrated from Eilat to Metula and even Nattiv says the film, co-written by fellow Israeli Sharon Maymon, is half-Israeli.
• At the ceremony, as he accepted the award, Nattiv noted his Israeli background: “Oh my God, I moved here five years ago from Israel,” Nattiv said on the stage and then switched to Hebrew. “Laila tov, Yisrael (Good night, Israel).”
• Among those who offered congratulations was Culture Minister Miri Regev, who has in the past criticized award-winning Israeli films that she thinks are anti-Israel.
• “Nattiv’s win is an important chapter in the unflinching battle against those who choose racism as a way of life for themselves,” she says.
• On Twitter, reporter Chaim Levinson juxtaposes the quote with a photo of Regev standing with a couple of Kahanists.

שרת התרבות מירי רגב בירכה הבוקר את גיא נתיב: "זכייתו של נתיב בסרט, העוסק בשנאה ובגזענות, היא פרק קולנועי חשוב במאבק התודעתי חסר הפשרות נגד מי שבוחרים בגזענות כדרך החיים שלהם". pic.twitter.com/Mr6rI7TVJh

— Chaim Levinson (@chaimlevinson) February 25, 2019