 Relic looted from the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority will examine the implications for archaeology in the Holy Land. And a medical team in Israel makes progress towards treating a deadly form of blood cancer. We'll speak with one of the researchers involved in that breakthrough study. We have established a different government with a different policy and everyone will see this. That was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at today's cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, relating to a series of punitive measures taken over the weekend directed against the Palestinian Authority. This follows last week's visit by National Security Minister Inamar Ben-Veer's visit to the Temple Mount that dialed up tensions between Israel and the PA, with both sides now blaming each other for unilateral steps aimed at heating up the already fragile atmosphere. Defense correspondent Jonathan Regiff has more in this report. A sensitive incident at a sensitive time shows a transition in policy in Israel towards the Palestinian Authority. Entry permits to Israel for three senior Palestinian Authority officials were revoked this weekend by Defense Minister Joav Galant after the trio crossed into Israel to congratulate released prisoner Karim Yunus, who finished his 40-year sentence for the murder of an Israeli soldier in 1980. Palestinian sources also say Israel revoked the entry permit of Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki. This follows days of back-and-forth actions between Jerusalem and Ramallah. On Thursday, Israel announced that it is taking steps against the Palestinian Authority, including the freezing of the PA's tax money collected by Israel. Our measures include sanctions against senior Palestinian officials, the offset of terrorist funds and the freezing of Palestinian construction projects in Area C, which are contrary to the explicit commitments which the Palestinian Authority took upon itself. The Israeli government claims this comes as a response to what it describes as diplomatic terrorism such as the debate last week at the UN Security Council to have the International Court of Justice draft an opinion on Israel's actions in the Palestinian territories. What red line does Israel need to cross for the Security Council to finally say enough is enough and to act accordingly? When are you going to act? If the previous government tried to keep an apparent cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, the current one is not wasting any time in showing times have changed. Joining us in studio is our Defense Correspondent Jonathan Regev and also Palestinian Security Analyst Mohamed Najib. Mohamed, let's start with the Palestinian reaction to these measures and how the impact that you see having, especially on relations between the Palestinians and Israel. Yes, Kalev. The Palestinian Authority is strongly shocked by the quick measures that taken by the Israeli ministers. In the first week of its formulation, the Marbonik Veer visited Laxamosk last Tuesday. On Thursday, he went to Nefha in prison and asked to restrict the treatment of the Palestinian prisoners. And on Friday, in both the legislative measures against the Palestinian Authority, which is the most important, is the fees of the money, the freeze of the money of the Palestinian Authority. Beside the 200 million shekels that they confiscate every month since November 21 and make the Palestinian Authority unable to be except 80 percent of the salaries of its 170,000 employees, the Palestinian Authority suffered from financial crisis and this will complicate and double its crisis and the threat is collapsed because of this financial crisis. Jonathan, this government did say it was going to take a different policy, but I think the speed in which they've done it and some of the measures and even steps that we've seen have caught some observers by surprise. Yes. And the question is, should have everybody been caught by surprise, the men in charge of the money is Batala Smutrich. The new finance minister, this is what his voters, I think, would expect him to do. Is this what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu really wants to see? The answer is probably no, but Netanyahu understands very well that he depends on Smutrich. We're speaking of a broad coalition, 64-member coalition. That's very nice. Take away Batala Smutrich and his party. We're down to 57. Take away Ita Marvin, the VRA and his party. We're down to 57. So Benjamin Netanyahu strongly depends on these people. These people, you know, you can agree or disagree with an Israeli finance minister saying, we'll keep this money because this is money that we should actually pay the terror victims instead of give it to the Palestinian Authority, which will only give it to terror perpetrators. Others can agree or disagree with the fact that the Minister of National Security goes to the Temple Mount. Israel says, you know what, this is no change in status quo. This is the status quo allows ministers to ascend to the Temple Mount. You can agree with that. You can disagree with that. The one thing that is clear, these are senior members of the Israeli cabinet and the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who I'm quite sure is not very happy with these moves, depends on these people. Right. Well, let this disagree with it, certainly in the Palestinian camp. That is the case. How do you think this, where do you think this is leading toward? How do you think that the Palestinians are going to respond, Mohammed? Yeah, the Palestinian Authority cannot stop its actions to go to the international courts or an international organization against the Israelis because this is the only thing that can do. It cannot tell its people, it cannot do anything handicapped. But also, I think the Palestinian Authority that survived the time when Netanyahu was the Prime Minister two years ago and the late U.S. President Donald Trump, now is facing a serious challenge with having the Smotrich and Ben Kivir at the government. And I think there is a serious concern that it may collapse and they are upset. And even the moves by the Israeli ministers angered not only the Palestinian Authority but the Arab countries who have good ties with Israeli Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, the European Union, the United States. So the new Israeli policy and how it's needed to take these actions, a concern not only the Palestinian Authority but even the friends of Israel who defend Israel all the time. And Jonathan, we have seen, for example, Minister Ben Kivir take not only the moves we've described in that video but even on last week breaking up what was described as a parents teacher conference in East Jerusalem on the grounds that the organization behind it was funded in some way by the Palestinian Authority. But again, this creates, as Mohammed relates, challenges for the Netanyahu government and for Benjamin that's now in particular on the international front. Yes, it doesn't look good. Yes, perhaps on paper, Itamar Ben Kivir had some kind of a right to do it because this is maybe some kind of an activity in East Jerusalem that is some way or another supported by the Palestinian Authority. Yes, is this governance breaking up a meeting between teachers and parents? Yes, maybe sponsored by the Palestinian Authority. Is this the governance? Is this what the voters were expecting? Itamar Ben Kivir and I have attended plenty of his rallies during the election campaign. He was speaking about governance in the Negev. He was speaking about governance in the Galilee. These are things that speak to the Israelis, especially to the people that live there, breaking up a meeting between teachers and parents in East Jerusalem because of Palestinian authorities somewhat involved in it. I'm not so sure this is what the Israeli public was looking for, clearly not what the international public was looking at Israel and saying this is not exactly what we're expecting from the Israeli government and the minister in charge of national security. Okay, but you could argue his own voters who voted for his party maybe certainly would expect and want this, a final word, just Muhammad on the series of the situation for the Palestinian Authority. And the big question is, will we see some kind of violent reaction by some elements in the Palestinian community? Now there is a stronger pressure on the Palestinian Authority to stop security coordination with Israel and during the dark days and during all the crises from the late Prime Minister Ali Ershalon until Netanyahu, the security continue to cooperate and to keep the situation calm on the ground. But now the security takes in that direction, then I think it will be a problem. So the Palestinian Authority cannot continue to face these measures, punitive measures without doing things. But also the Palestinian prisoners are preparing for protestation inside the Israeli jails for the coming weeks. And if that's happened, then the Palestinian State and the West Bank will revolt and will support them. Then we are going to witness more violence and instability. Well, we'll have to see what develops in the coming weeks. Muhammad Nesheev, Jonathan Raghav, thank you for that. Still to come on the rundown, Iran executes two more anti-regime protests amid growing international calls to stop what's being called a human rights crime. We'll have that story. An organism that pulsates through millennia. Touch it, listen to it, smell it, taste it. Experience the Holy Land like never before. Holy Land uncovered every Sunday only on I-24 News. Sometimes it's tough to get past all the noise and get to the heart of the story, and tougher to make sense of it all. I'm David Matlin, and each weekday I'll take on the most important topics, breaking down the issues so you can decide for yourself. Zoom in each weekday here at I-24 News. Israel experience is not complete without a visit to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. On Jerusalem's Mount of Remembrance, you will uncover the rich tapestry of Jewish life prior to the Holocaust. Discover the history of one of the darkest periods in humanity, and be inspired by the courageous actions of those who fought back. The World Class Museum of Holocaust History, the sprawling outdoor grounds, and the moving monumental memorials offer an unrivaled encounter with one of the most pivotal events in modern Jewish history and all of humanity. Yad Vashem, a place to remember. Entrance is free. Reserve your visit on www.yadveshem.org. Back to the rundown. A delegation of Israeli officials are in Abu Dhabi today to begin meetings with officials from other nations in the NEGEV Forum, the regional grouping comprised of Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, and the U.S. The first NEGEV summit of foreign ministers was held last year in Israel's Kibbutz, St. Bokeh. This week's meeting in the UAE aims to lay the ground for the next summit, hopefully in Morocco in the spring. The forum aims to implement the principles enshrined in the Abraham Accords in joint initiatives and projects in areas as diverse as regional security, energy, tourism, education, and water security. His U.S. State Department spokesman, Ned Price, speaking on this process last week. Since the conclusion of the NEGEV Forum last year, the inaugural convening of the NEGEV Forum, it has always been our intention to bring together the NEGEV participants at the ministerial level. Again, we don't have a specific date at the moment to provide, but that remains our intention because normalization between Israel and its neighbors is something that we unambiguously support and we believe it brings opportunity to the people of Israel, to the people of the region, and we seek to help Israel and its neighbors build those bridges of opportunity. But this week's meeting of the NEGEV Forum Steering Committee comes at a time of somewhat strained relations between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors. Following National Security Minister Ben Veers' visit last week to the Temple Mount al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem. Now this does include the UAE, which joined those other Arab states in condemning the move at the United Nations. Also weighing in this weekend was a very prominent Emirati businessman and philanthropist Khalif Ahmad al-Habtour, who tweeted, quote, at a time when Arab countries are seeking to establish peace and spread tranquility in the region, the Israeli Minister of National Security stormed the courtyard of al-Aqsa Mosque, committing a clear violation and unacceptable provocation. These actions inevitably lead to an exacerbation of escalation, and this is not in the interest of anyone in Israel will be the biggest loser. Well joining us now for more is Dr. Marwa Maziad, non-resident scholar, defense and security program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, and visiting assistant professor Gilda Horn, Institute for Israel Studies University of Maryland. She joins us from Washington. And Marwa, of course, the big question is to what degree the actions taken by Edomar Kaven Veer last weekend, to some degree continuing over the weekend, are going to impact on Israel's relations with its abnations, especially those connected with the Abraham Accords? Well, you can see from this tweet from someone like Khalif al-Habtour, who is a billionaire who's even was for the normalization for the Abraham Accords. But then when that, you know, strike a chord with the general Arab population and Muslim population, then you find these people will be vocal about the idea of the violation and being an unclear provocation this way. So I think, yeah, we have to pay attention to the fact that this tweet took place in the first place because this means it's perceived this way Israel is going to lose on some of its connections with some of the more pro Abraham Accords and normalization and business deals, etc. Right. And to what degree now you're talking about people say in the business community, especially people of influence as he is and have some connection with the regime. But what about with the government, but what about with the government itself in countries like the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, all participants, not only just in the Abraham Accords, but in these other forums such as the NEGF forum? Okay. So this is to tell you that there are parallel, you know, lines. So the NEGF forum is going to take place in Abu Dhabi, the participants are going to be there at the governmental level. But I think the point here is to be attuned, Israel has to be attuned to the sentiment among the populations at large and among influentials or characters and business people or authorities like that. I think also, you know, during the World Cup, for instance, I think the Israeli coverage of Qatar and how it didn't pay attention to how much the Palestinians during that month's long event, the Arabs, including the Emirates, the Egyptian, all the normalizers basically, where really the Palestinians were in their mind, they were having a good time with their brothers, et cetera. And yet there was such a coverage that was almost either too negative of the Palestinians or too jealous of this relation. I think Israel has to really gauge very much how people within the Arab and Muslim countries feel. And I think in particular about the Temple Mount Aqsa Mosque, Haram Sharif, the idea of the status quo needs to be very clear. So the idea that the status quo necessitates that Muslims have the right to worship, but maybe Jews have the right to visit. But it shouldn't have ever been the way the Ben-Ghver has visited. This was not seen as a visit anyway. So the delineation of even the terms, what is the status quo, what it means, how it is applied to visit versus to worship, oh, he says, I just visited. But with the security and kind of the idea of storming, all of these things matter. And I think Netanyahu took a risk of saying, nothing will happen. Yeah, maybe nothing will happen in the terms of actual interfa'ada and escalations and violence. But you can see a tweet like that. And someone who feels condemning that or even just embarrassed by Israel's government's behavior this way, then the government has to calculate for all of that. Because it's very, very sensitive and ephemeral, even the relations and the ties and all that, they can change over events like this. Just very briefly, do you see a visit by Benjamin Netanyahu to the UAE in the coming weeks? So see, this was postponed, canceled, whatever. So yeah, maybe it will come in the next month after all of this kind of calms down a little bit, but it didn't happen. So he should understand that there are costs for that. And actually, the normalization and the ties between UAE and Israel means that the UAE will have some cloud leverage. If it's upset, then it means something. If people like Al-Hathor is upset, it means something. So I think, yeah, he will have to calculate. All right, Dr. Marwa Mazia, thank you for joining us on the rundown. Now at this morning's cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Netanyahu also spoke about Iran, the Palestinian Authority and the economy, but his comments on one issue dominated domestically, the future of Israel's legal system and the changes the governing coalition wants to make to it. Senior correspondent Owen Altman brings us the latest on an issue that is quickly igniting passions on both sides of the political divide. A Sunday cabinet meeting to launch the new week and a chance for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get his message out in the escalating fight over the future of Israel's legal system. The Minister of Justice presented the first stage of the reform he is planning. The claim that this reform is the end of democracy is baseless. Until recently, many from all parts of the political spectrum recognized the need to restore the balance between the three authorities. Netanyahu's words come as the governing coalition looks to push through the Israeli parliament the reforms it wants to see in the legal system, a number of items. But most controversially, the so-called override clause, which would allow 61 of 120 members of parliament to override some decisions by the Supreme Court. My reform is not arriving at the Knesset on top of tanks. It's arriving at the Knesset through ballots cast by voters in a process of democratic elections with the support of enormous segments of the public, whose voice for years were not heard by the legal system. I think that there is a danger to the Israeli democracy, a clear and present danger. If these policies will be implemented, we will formally have a democracy, a democracy without balances. That is to say, a democracy with, in effect, only one authority, the Prime Minister. The debate has spilled out onto the streets, with opponents of the overhaul protesting in Tel Aviv Saturday night. We don't want to lose it, we don't want to feel that our democracy disappears from us, we don't want the Supreme Court to be destroyed, and we want the government to be under control. The coalition wants legislating to start soon, making these only the opening rounds of what both sides see as a high stakes fight over the very future of Israeli democracy. And joining us now is Likud Party member Dan Iluz, who is expected to become a member of the Knesset in the coming weeks. As some of those Knesset members give up their seats, become ministers, or as part of what's called the so-called Norwegian law, and he speaks to us from Jerusalem. Dan, thank you for joining us. I know you've spoken on the judicial reforms before, but let's relate specifically to some comments by Justice Barak in his interview last night, particularly that even though, yes, democracy is majority rule, but this reforms will take away the checks and balances that are needed in any democracy to prevent just one part of it being so dominant. First of all, thank you for having me here. I heard the Justice Barak's comments, and I have to say he really made up a whole doctrine in law. I'm a legal student. I studied law in Canada. Canada has an overwrite clause. Canada's Constitution Charter of Rights and Freedom is the charter that Israel based itself when creating the basic laws that the Supreme Court now uses in order to cancel laws and to do judicial review. It has an overwrite clause. Is anyone in the world arguing that Canada is not a democracy? I mean, I'm Canadian originally. I've never heard us being accused of not being a democracy. So why is it that in Canada an overwrite clause is okay, and in Israel an overwrite clause is not okay? I think that the reason is clear. Can I quote good? I'll quote you what Alan Dershowitz said on this program. Israel is not Canada. Israel's legal legitimacy is not questioned in international forums. So it's more important that Israel have that highly respected Supreme Court. I definitely respect Alan Dershowitz. I think he's a great defender of Israel, and I thank him for his work. You can hear from the things that he said that what he's worried about is how the world will interpret these things. He might be saying that it's not smart, but it's definitely not anti-democratic the way that Aaron Barak is trying to say. I disagree with him, by the way. I think that the smartest thing that Israel can do is be a healthy democracy where the people can decide what the future will be. That's what a democracy is. The people deciding for themselves what the future will be, and not unelected courts making political decisions. By the way, something else that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. Political decisions are not supposed to be dealt with by courts. They're supposed to remove themselves whenever it's a political decision in Israel. They focus on political decisions in order to try to stop things that they disagree with. It's completely unheard of all around the world, and so I think that really the question here is not a question between democracy or not democracy. It's a classical question between judicial activism or judicial restraints, something that exists everywhere in the world, and so right now, the proponents of judicial restraint, which I'm part of these people, have the upper hand. We won an election, and so we're going to apply policy according to our... I understand. There are those in the United States that would disagree with you that courts don't get involved in political matters, and they're talking about even as critics of the court. But I'm just going to mention that. But let me ask you, do you think the Likud polls are not showing strong public support in the general public, and even in some weakness among voters, for example, the Likud, for these reforms? Do you think the Likud is making an effective enough public argument for these reforms? I think that we're just getting started. We are just getting started. The reforms were announced last week, and I'm sure that they will pass with white support. And I agree, by the way, that constitutional reforms should pass with white support. So it's up to us in the Likud to sell this to the public in order to make sure that there's white support. I just wanted to bring up a few seconds. Do you want to see, for example, Benny Gantz's call for a sort of conference to discuss this? Listen, after he lost the election, now he's trying to be nice and to speak about a conference. We have a wide majority of 64, which is considered a serious majority in Israel. And so we can make decisions by ourselves. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't listen to the opposition, to their concerns. They can help us make the legislations better. That's definitely true.