“Israel Hayom helps him brainwash millions of Israelis, who are convinced they have to support him and his settlements-and-apartheid policy in order to protect themselves. They learn daily from Israel Hayom that if Netanyahu falls and a Palestinian state is established, missiles will rain down and kill them. Israel Hayom teaches them to be Jewish-nationalist extremists and racist toward Arabs.”
--Haaretz columnist Rogel Alpher writes that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu needs the Sheldon Adelson-funded 'Israel Hayom' newspaper to defend his government “and protect the apartheid state he has established.”*

---

You Must Be Kidding: 
"The two wanted men were aged 11 and 13. Tariq’s voice hasn’t broken yet, and Maliq has a bashful smile. Since that night, they will sleep only in their parents’ bed." 
--Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy reported on a IDF operation this month, in which soldiers broke into a home in the Palestinian village of Kfar Qaddum during the dead of night to get to two children, whose arms they grabbed before locking them into two separate rooms for 40 minutes and warning them not to participate in the demonstrations to reopen the village's access road, and threatening Maliq that he will be either shot or arrested if he does.**

"Our elected officials do nothing to stop the reality of a Palestinian prime minister. Israel has no plan today. We blame the political and government leadership that is busy with itself."
--Former Mossad director Shabtai Shavit said at a press conference at the start of a new campaign to convince Israelis to support a two-state solution.** 

You Must Be Kidding: 
The number of children living below the poverty line in Israel has quadrupled over the past three decades, reaching 30.3 percent in 2015 – the highest rate among developed countries.**

"I'd run over a cop, too, if they were forcing me out of my home to build a community for people better off than me." 
--Army Radio reporter Khen Elmaleh wrote on her personal Facebook page - and was fired.*

News Summary:
The beginning of the Trump era, the removal of a cancerous tumor from the IDF Chief of Staff and the latest on the Netanyahu investigations were today’s top stories in the Hebrew newspapers. Also in the news, Channel 2 revealed that in the deadly incident in the Bedouin village of Um al-Hiran this week, police officers testified that they did shoot first at the car of the Bedouin man before it rammed into a police officer, in contrast to police statements otherwise; his family is demanding an investigation. And the military prosecution wants convicted soldier Sgt. Elor Azariya to serve 3-5 years in prison.
 
Yedioth’s Orly Azoulay on the Trump era:
“Today a President who made history will leave the White House and in his stead will enter a President who made a completely different kind of history. The intellectual charisma of Barack Obama will be replaced by the confidence and aggressiveness of Donald Trump, the light and effortless style will be replaced by a short fuse and a big mouth.”

On the Netanyahu investigations:
Haaretz+’s Yossi Verter writes that “The political arena is in the meantime gearing up for elections next September-October. The prevailing view is that a decision about whether to indict the premier will be made in May-June, the Knesset will be dissolved and elections held about 100 days later. That’s the working assumption of three coalition party leaders who regularly exchange views.” Also, the State Attorney will decide whether to launch a probe against Mossad director Yossi Cohen for receiving illicit gifts from Australian billionaire James Packer. Haaretz+’s Amir Oren writes that as “Yossi Cohen's ties to Netanyahu's rich friends come to light, shadows lengthen over the night he was tapped to lead Israel's spy agency. If a link could be established, Israel may see both its prime minister and its Mossad chief gone in one fell swoop.”
 
And on Netanyahu’s son, Yair, Yedioth’s Nahum Barnea writes that the claim by Netanyahu’s PR people that the gifts that Netanyahu and his family received “were between friends” and were reciprocated is ridiculous. “(Arnon) Milchan and (Australian tycoon James) Packer don’t make visits (to the PM). And when the supply of cigars and champagne empties, whoever needs to make a call to whoever needs to be called, a new monthly order is made, the driver of the giver or the receiver makes the transfer, and the bill is written accordingly.” Barnea writes that Israelis are not so stupid to believe Netanyahu’s son, Yair, who testified before police this week that his father has no connection to his own friendship with Packer and that his father had no idea that the Australian tycoon is funding Yair with first class flights, yacht trips, living in his luxury apartment, and enormous plates of sushi delivered to the office of the IDF Spokesman’s Unit, while Yair served there, among other things. “The claim that the gifts were given without getting in return is ridiculous,” writes Barnea. “Even billionaires don’t give presents in those amounts. And the absurd is that statement that Netanyahu did not know about the gifts to his son. Who is the idiot who would shower on Yair all that good without his father – and more importantly his mother – knowing.”
 
A Maariv survey found that 57% of the public believe there is a basis to the suspicions against Netanyahu. Only 28% believe Netanyahu that there is nothing behind them. Yesh Atid party is leading with 26 mandates if elections were held now and Likud trails with 23. The Labor party would get only 9, but if it were led by former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi it would get 15 seats. 
 
 

 

You Must Be Kidding: 
"I hate leftists more than I hate Arabs. Arabs are supporting their people and their land. Leftists are Jews who hate their own people, they are against their own people, this is why I hate leftists. They are self-righteous and they don’t live in the reality. But in their heart, they know that it’s not possible for there to be equal rights between Jews and Arabs."
--Sapir Sabah, the high-school student who brought about the firing of her left-wing teacher, gave an interview to Mako.**

"Almaleh was fired because she did something much more dangerous and subversive: the courage to not make a distinction between Jew and Arab. Almaleh sees people without reference to their ethnicity or national affiliation. That is a genuinely intolerable sacrilege. Khen Almaleh is Satan. 'I too would have run if I were being forced out of my home in order to build a community for people more powerful than I,' she wrote. Whoa! She doesn’t care if the perpetrator is Arab. She doesn’t care if the “more powerful” people are Jews. She doesn’t care about the Zionist enterprise. She has empathy for the underdog, despite his being Arab and her being Jewish. That is not merely justifying the murder of a policeman. That is genuinely dangerous.”
--Haaretz commentator Rogel Alpher writes about the firing of an Army Radio DJ for expressing sympathy with a Bedouin man who ran over a policeman who had come to demolish his home. (Later, the autopsy revealed that he was shot in the leg which likely caused him to lose control of the car and hit the policeman.)** 

Yesterday, Abed Dawiat, a 20-year-old Palestinian from E. Jerusalem, got an 18-year prison sentence - the longest given in Israel for manslaughter from stone-throwing. Dawiat threw a stone at the car of an Israeli man, who lost control, crashed into a pole and died.
Today, the Israeli military prosecution is expected to seek a 3-5 year sentence for Sgt. Elor Azariya, 20, who was convicted [only] of manslaughter. Azariya extra-judicially shot in the head and killed a 20-year-old Palestinian assailant who had already been laying on the ground incapacitated, wounded and unmoving for 11 minutes.

“Was the war really conducted in a negligent manner, or perhaps Netanyahu and (former defense minister Moshe) Ya'alon actually demonstrated responsibility and caution? After all, they knew and understood, as well as the chief of staff and his generals, that fast moves - as (Minister Naftali) Bennett urged: "Be galloping horses" - will cause many deaths that Israeli society finds difficult to deal with… And there is another truth that must be admitted: neither Hamas nor its tunnels pose a strategic threat to Israel's military power.”
--Maariv’s Intel commentator Yossi Melman writes that while the State Comptroller’s report may make look Minister Naftali Bennett look good for exposing that information was kept from the security cabinet, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Bennett was strategically right in pushing for the destruction of the Hamas tunnels.*