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Are the Saudis Waiting for Biden? Likud’s Widening Lead on Yamina

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With the Knesset likely to disband within the next few weeks, a new poll shows the Likud party widening its lead on Naftali Bennett’s Yamina.

In the survey, which was conducted by Channel 12 and published on Saturday, the Likud received 30 seats, the highest the ruling party has gotten since August. Naftali Bennett’s Yamina is close behind at 20 seats, a drop of 3 from a slew of surveys conducted earlier this month.

Coming in at third place is Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party with 18 seats, with the Arab Joint List getting 13, two less than the 15 it has today in the Knesset. Benny Gantz’s Blue and White fell to only 9 seats, while both the Shas and UTJ haredi parties got 8 in this newest poll.

Labor, the Jewish Home, and Derech Eretz are all far beneath the electoral threshold and would not enter the Knesset had elections be held today. Overall, the right wing and haredi factions had 66 seats between them, easily giving Netanyahu another term in power should Yamina continue to support him.

The survey indicates that the Likud is succeeding in returning disgruntled voters back to the fold from Yamina. The Religious Zionist party had soared in the polls, reaching as much as 25 seats from its current six due to public anger with Netanyahu’s handling of the coronavirus.

With the current national unity government on the verge of collapse, Netanyahu has urged Likud lawmakers to attack Yamina’s Naftali Bennett at every opportunity to halt the latter’s rise in the polls. Bennett has vowed not to support Netanyahu as prime minister in the next election, making Yamina the main obstacle for Netanyahu’s quest to remain Israel’s longest-serving elected leader.

Saudi Arabia is reportedly waiting for Joe Biden to be inaugurated in January before normalizing relations with Israel.

The Saudi royal family has come under heavy pressure by the Trump administration to follow the UAE and Bahrain in establishing diplomatic ties with the Jewish State. As part of these efforts, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brokered a meeting between Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) and Prime Minister Netanyahu in the Saudi city of Neom last week.

The summit, and the effort in general, has failed to yield results, with Saudi royals reiterating that it can only recognize Israel following the establishment of a Palestinian State. But a new report says that MBS is holding off on recognizing Israel until Biden is sworn in as president in order to reap dividends such a move would bring with the new U.S. administration.

According to the Wall Street Journal report, Riyadh wants to use normalization as a means to resist pressure by the Biden administration on issues such as human rights. Biden had taken a harsh line on Saudi Arabia in the past on a wide range of issues, including its involvement in the bloody civil war in Yemen and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

With the Biden administration expected to be hostile to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is counting on the goodwill it will receive by handing it a diplomatic triumph to resist Washington on other points of contention. Quoting senior advisors to the Kingdom, the newspaper said that inking a historic deal with the Jewish State under Biden’s tutelage “could put relations between the Biden administration and Riyadh on surer footing.”

“Normalization…is a carrot to get [Biden’s] focus away from other is-

sues, especially human rights,” added a Saudi diplomat.

The development is said to be frustrating for the Trump administration, which “watched as a potential capstone to the Trump administration’s efforts to reorder the politics of the region and build a bulwark against Iran slipped from his grasp.”

In a last-ditch effort to hammer out a normalization deal before Trump leaves office, Jared Kushner visited Neom this week to meet Bin Salman, the same city in which Netanyahu made his secret visit last month. Kushner was accompanied by Middle East envoys Avi Berkowitz and Brian Hook, who are also attempting to mend the years-long rift between Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Windsurfing Medals

Israel recorded an impressive showing at the RS:X European Championships in windsurfing, taking home a gold and two silver medals in the competition held in Portugal at the end of November.

Yoav Cohen, 21, emerged victorious in the adult windsurfing championships, winning the Gold for the first time in his career. Shachar Zubari, pulled down the Silver in the same race with 51 points overall.

“I’m speechless – this is a dream come true. I can’t find the words,” a jubilant Cohen said. The medal was Zuberi’s fifth European championship, with the 34-year-old also having won the Silver in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

In the women’s meet, Katy Spychakov took home the Silver with 39 points, behind eventual Gold medal winner Charline Picon from France. Spychakov told the press afterwards that she was disappointed by the results as she had fully expected to win the championship outright.

“It was a rough competition,” Spychakov admitted. “I’m glad that I managed to take home a medal and the ticket to Tokyo.”

Culture and Sports Minister Chili Tropper hailed the windsurfers for their “exceptional achievements.”

The competition served as the qualifying round for the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which were originally slated to take place this past July but were postponed for a year due to the coronavirus. Windsurfing is the only sport in which Israel has won a Gold medal, with Gal Fridman breaking the long drought with his win in the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Yad Vashem’s Financial Troubles

Yad Vashem is being forced to institute temporary spending cuts and dip into financial reserves so it could finish the 2020 fiscal year with a balanced budget. Their financial stresses stem from Israel’s political gridlock along with the pandemic.

Former General Effi Eitam is set to become the institute’s next director. But the former right-wing politician has come under criticism for his past statements about Palestinians and Arab Israelis.

Eitam’s candidacy is one in a long list of senior appointments held up by the ongoing deadlock between the Blue and White and Likud parties. This is not necessarily because the parties don’t want to nominate him per se. Instead, Blue and White is refusing to allow his appointment to come up for a necessary cabinet vote as part of a larger tit-fortat standoff that has prevented the appointments of a national police commissioner, a state attorney, a Prime Minister’s Office directorgeneral, senior health and justice officials, and more.

Yad Vashem’s 27-year director, Avner Shalev, a former brigadier general and ex-government official, announced in June he would retire at