Between Biden and Egypt, Bennett’s diplomatic efforts get a booster shot

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Toward the end of the week, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett plucked the first fruits of a prolonged behind-the-scenes diplomatic effort. Bennett was invited to visit the United States and will meet with President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday. He also received an invitation – no date yet – to visit Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi.

Combined with a convincing performance at a coronavirus press conference Wednesday, and indications of the success of the third-shot campaign, Bennett had a decent week, certainly if we take into account the raging pandemic.

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The invitation from Biden was expected. The Democratic administration has every reason to support the Bennett-Lapid government, which is fighting for its survival.

The invitation from Sissi was exceptional, though there were leaks over the years about secret meetings between him and Benjamin Netanyahu. The two were close allies, especially during the Trump era. What’s new is Sissi’s willingness to make the invitation public – a move probably related to his efforts to get in the good graces of the new administration, which unlike its predecessor is sensitive to the Egyptian regime’s severe human rights violations.

The envoy who brought the invitation was Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, who met with both Bennett and Defense Minister Benny Gantz during a visit to Israel this week. In the meantime, a senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces, whose identity may not be published, visited Egypt. The intensive visits might explain some of this week’s developments: the relative optimism about the chances of the “regularization” with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the absence of an Israeli response to rocket fire at Sderot and the Counter-Terrorism Bureau’s announcement that it was lowering the terror-threat level for Israelis visiting the Sinai Peninsula.

There have been various disappointments in the past, but now a serious international effort seems to be underway to consolidate the cease-fire after the fighting with Gaza in May. This week progress was made in the United Nations’ talks with Qatar to renew the monthly support ($100 per family) for needy families in Gaza. The Qatari money has been stuck for three months due to Israel’s demand to put an end to the cash-filled suitcases.

No solution has been found yet for the major issue occupying Hamas: Qatar’s payments to tens of thousands of the organization’s active members who are considered civil servants. Amid this, Israel’s restraint over the rocket fire, despite Bennett’s tough declarations (“We will respond in the place and time of our choosing”) appears to be a gesture to the Egyptian mediators.

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Increasing the tourist flow into Sinai is critical for Egypt, which is desperate for foreign currency. Last week charter flights to Sinai were renewed for tourists from Russia for the first time since 2015, when in Sinai an offshoot of the Islamic State blew up a Russian passenger jet filled with tourists. And for the first time in a year and a half the entry into Israel of “businesspeople” (many of them actually manual laborers) from Gaza will be allowed. At the moment, their number stands at 1,350, down from a peak of 7,500 in January 2020 following a previous arrangement of security calm and on the eve of the pandemic.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and head of Egypt’s intelligence, Abbas Kamel, August 2021.Kobi Gideon – GPO

Loony like ‘Catch-22’

In the meantime, Bennett’s somewhat desperate gamble on the COVID booster shot appears to be paying off. At the beginning of the month, the prime minister decided to approve a third dose for over-50s without waiting for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The initial figures show that Bennett made the right choice. The disparity in illness, especially severe illness, between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated is unmistakable. There are also indications that illness among over-60s, most of whom leaped at the chance to get a third shot, is being contained.

Hebrew University’s experts released a slightly less pessimistic forecast this week: Israel won’t get to 2,400 seriously ill COVID patients – the health system’s new bar at which the hospitals will hit incapacity. (Though the quality of medical care is expected to decline even before that number.)

The change is also apparently a product of human behavior. Even though the government’s restrictions are modest, older people are taking greater care. There has also been a slight rise in people being vaccinated for the first time, on the back of a vigorous campaign by the government and the media.

But Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton continues to hamper the vaccination effort. She agreed to have vaccinations given at schools, but only before or after classes.

She may well have come up with this solution from the anxious squadron commander in Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” who let people visit him in his office only when he wasn’t there. Shasha-Biton’s logic didn’t sound any more convincing than that of Major Major Major Major – and the Health Ministry found a legal way to outflank her.

Yifat Shasha-Biton in the Knesset last JuneOhad Zwigenberg

A year ago, as head of the Knesset’s coronavirus committee, Shasha-Biton won considerable support from the public when she often questioned the Health Ministry’s policy under Netanyahu. Under Bennett, who’s doing all he can to avoid lockdowns, her automatic objections to every move and restriction are raising questions.

Will the prime minister be able to rely on her judgment in the looming meeting to discuss the possible deferral of the start of the school year to after the fall Jewish holidays? (All of which fall in September this year.)

Despite the decrease in the second shot’s effectiveness, vaccination still seems the main method for Israel to tamp down the crisis. But the absolute dependence on this also creates a trap for the government, so it hasn’t changed a key rule: If you’re vaccinated (including those who received only two shots at the beginning of the year), you’re exempt from quarantine if you come into contact with a confirmed carrier. The fear is that otherwise the motivation to get the inoculation would be cut.

It’s also hard to understand why basic measures like limiting mass gatherings in closed spaces weren’t started a few weeks ago. Huge weddings were identified as a major source of infection at the start of the second wave around a year ago.

Meanwhile, the epidemiological investigations are going on, even when it’s clear that their contribution is minor when the numbers are this high. The IDF’s efforts in this task are focusing on contact tracing of older people, forgoing much else. One difficulty it faces is that, at least until recently, even older people behaved as if the pandemic had ended. In the days before their diagnosis as COVID patients, they were in contact with dozens of people.

As things stand now, pursuing the chains of infection is like trying to drain the ocean with a spoon. It’s about as relevant as the hand sanitizer at the start of the pandemic.

Bennett is undoubtedly dreaming of a British-like miracle. A month ago, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared Freedom Day and canceled most of the country’s coronavirus restrictions, ignoring the galloping infection rates. Most experts in Britain warned of a disaster. The number of daily new cases, they said, would surge to 100,000 from 50,000.

But the opposite happened: The number of new cases halved. This month it has risen slightly; the seven-day average is now at about 30,000. More importantly, mortality is still modest, about 100 deaths a day, and the burden on the hospitals is reasonable. No one can explain why this happened or how long it will continue.

The delta variant’s inroads in Israel have lagged about a month behind Britain. Bennett will pray for a repeat performance in Israel, but for now the chances don’t look good.