Front Page News:

Haaretz

• Netanyahu’s equation: Missiles on Tel-Aviv are preferable to Iranian bomb
• Strip and humiliate: This is how the Shin-Bet interrogates Palestinian women
• [Former chief justice Dorit Beinisch] Putting up borders: Police must inform suspects of their right to refuse searches
• Precedent: Women who gave birth abroad with the aid of a surrogate to be recognized as mother without [need for] adoption
• Wanted for Channel 1: A drama on Moses

• “Israeli attack on Iran will also harm the US” – Obama, day after his summit with Netanyahu
• Status: Friends – President Peres inaugurated his official Facebook page in a meeting with its founder

• Netanyahu agreed to grant Obama a window of limited time (Hebrew)
• Peres and Zuckerberg are friends (Hebrew with video)
• Stop violence in the [soccer] fields
• This is how Israel became the world record-holder for use of cannabis for medical purposes
• Menashe Samira: "Serious suspicion of sale of items in television program"

• "Masters of our fate" - That is the main message of the PM to the US administration and the world
• Obama inclined to supply Israel with bunker-busting bombs and refueling aircraft
• "2012 won't be 1944"
• 'Like' the President
• Gen. Fares to Barak: "Return me to the army"
• Because of the (violence at the) derby: Soccer union acting to put police at exits

News Summary:
What really took place behind the closed White House doors and an Israeli President looking for Syrian friends were top stories vying for space on the front and inside pages of Israeli papers today. Meanwhile, a US commander says lack of Israeli-Palestinan peace hurts US military activities, Yedioth writes that Hamas has formed a new terror branch, and Hamas says it won't get involved in an Israel-Iran war. Finally, Ynet tells of a mysterious 'One-State Solution' campaign across the West Bank.
 
What is now clear from the meeting between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is that they remain divided on the key issues: at what point to attack Iranian nuclear facilities and what are the consequences of an Israeli military attack against them. Haaretz reports that Netanyahu considers missiles on Tel Aviv preferable to nukes in Iran. Both Haaretz and Yedioth say that Obama warned that 'premature military action on Iran' would hurt the US too. Maariv writes that one Israeli source in DC said that Netanyahu agreed to give Obama time and Obama agreed to shorten the time to give sanctions a chance. "The gap [about when to attack] has begun to close," said the source. (Hebrew) US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta assured Israel that military force would be used against Iran if all else failed. Obama reportedly instructed Panetta to consider Israeli request for US bunker-busting bombs. Ynet's Atilla Somfalvi discusses Israeli officials' disappointment with the Obama meeting. The article also includes an interesting video of a CNN side-by-side interview with Netanyahu's former chief of staff Naftali Bennett and Iranian-American journalist Hooman Majd. And British premier David Cameron joined Obama in his call to Israel to give sanctions a chance to work.

Haaretz's military affairs correspondent Amir Oren wrote an interesting piece about the speech given by the head of the US Central Command, who said that the Israel-Palestine peace stalemate exacts a 'steep price' and complicates the activities of forces under his command.
 
A Hamas official said Hamas 'won't do Iran's bidding in any war." Salah Bardawil was quoted in the Guardian as saying that "Hamas is not part of military alliances in the region. Our strategy is to defend our rights."

Meanwhile, an unsourced article by Alex Fishman in Yedioth claims Hamas has formed a covert terror faction called the Al-Aqsa Defenders. The paper writes that since it won elections Hamas is trying to show the international community a pragmatic facade by not making attacks. But the secret faction allegedly set up a year ago allows it to shoot rockets and put bombs along the border as well as plan bigger attacks.
 
Posters reading 'One state for five million Arabs and six million Jews' were found across Palestinian cities, writes Ynet's excellent Palestinian affairs correspondent Elior Levy. The article includes video and talks of the slew of rumors in the Palestinian Authority over who may be responsible for it.
 

Quick Hits:

• (Israeli) NGO asks Israel's AG to probe alleged Shin Bet abuse of Palestinian women (Haaretz) 
• Motivation to enlist in combat units: Lowest in three years - At 72.4%. IDF says it does not know reason and must investigate, but could be because of social justice protests and no war in recent years. (Maariv, p. 10, NRG Hebrew)
• (Settler) West Bank sewage plant likely to get clean bill of land ownership - Lawyers for the Palestinian landowners demand the committee reject solution proposed by IDF. (Haaretz)
• Israeli government investing more in Arab sector, study shows - Rising government investment is hardly sufficient to close gaps between Israel's Arab, Jewish populations, study adds. (Haaretz)
• Israel Supreme Court overturns ruling on Sultan Yaqub MIA - Rules that IDF cannot declare a soldier who had been missing in action in Lebanon since 1982 as dead. (Haaretz)
• Dud blast kills 2 Palestinian kids near Hebron - Two 12-year-old boys suffer fatal injuries, two others moderately injured when abandoned ordnance explodes. (Ynet)
• Steinitz: Electricity price hike caused by Iran sanctions (Yedioth and Ynet)
• Israel Security Agency decides to fire 80 senior air marshals (Israel Hayom)
• Actor travels to Ireland to promote Israeli diplomacy (Yedioth and Ynet)
• Sequel to Israeli film on homosexual IDF romance to open Tribeca film-fest (Haaretz)
• Google Israel launches new program to incubate start-ups (Israel Hayom)
• Photo journey: North Israel [Mandatory Palestine] in 1920s (Ynet)
• India issues 10 year boycott on Israel Military Industries (Yedioth and Ynet)
• French PM knocks halal, kosher laws as campaign heats up (Agencies, Ynet)
• Iran to allow IAEA visit Parchin military site - Site is where agency believes Tehran pursued high explosives research relevant to nuclear weapons. (Ynet)
• EU's Ashton accepts Iranian offer of nuclear talks (Agencies, Ynet)
• Romney, Santorum vow to fight Iran's nuclear ambitions (Ynet)

Features:
‘I was once ashamed of my mother’s power’ 'My mother, Hatam Mara’ana, is the most feminist a woman can be, but she isn’t entirely aware of this,' says film director Ibtisam Mara’ana. (Haaretz)

Why? Who died? Ten days ago Haaretz did something unusual: it placed an opinion piece on the top of its front page. It wasn't any ordinary opinion piece. It was written by one of the country's foremost novelists, David Grossman. The article, like Emile Zola's J'accuse, to which it has been compared, was a moral critique. However, it was not translated to the English edition, apparently because of copyright issues. Sol Salbe of the Middle East News Service, Melbourne Australia, translated it and put it on his Facebook page for anyone to read. Since then the translation has been traveling the blogosphere and now News Nosh has become aware of it. Thanks to Mr. Salbe. Here it is.

Commentary/Analysis:

Netanyahu returns empty-handed from Washington (Haaretz Editorial) Israel's right to defend itself is a matter of consensus. But whether Israel is sovereign in its decision on when and how to use its American weapons and entangle its most important friend - that's another question.
 
Yes, prime minister (Ruthie Blum, Israel Hayom) Netanyahu was not directing his threats at the regime in Tehran. Rather, he was making an appeal to American Jews of all political stripes to side with him if and when he takes military action.
 
**Netanyahu’s dangerous Holocaust analogy (Carlo Strenger, Haaretz) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may go into history not as another Winston Churchill, but rather as another George W. Bush.

By conjuring the Holocaust, Netanyahu brought Israel closer to war with Iran (Aluf Benn, Haaretz) Haaretz's editor-in-chief says that the Prime Minister publicly booby-trapped himself to war with Iran by comparing the need to strike its nuclear program with the Jewish request to bomb Auschwitz.
 
Israel needs referendum before attacking Iran (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz) Somehow they gave us the feeling that an attack on Iran would be a piece of cake - 'we finish and leave.'
 
1949 in exchange for 1967 (Shaul Arieli, Haaretz) The Jewish people must decide whether it is also a 'living people' that knows how to propose and accept compromises.
 
AIPAC, buy me!  (Boaz Gaon, Haaretz) The leading right-wingers in America view Israel as a kind of political football made out of seven million residents, a football that can be kicked at the wall over and over.
 
Trust America’s president (Smadar Shir, Yedioth and Ynet) Unlike Bibi, Obama is the responsible adult who should be trusted to handle Iran.
 
I don't trust Obama (Hanoch Daum, Yedioth and Ynet) We can't count on president to protect Israel at the expense of his personal interest.
 
The clock is ticking (Boaz Bismuth, Israel Hayom) At the end of the day, the disagreement between U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Iran is largely about a timetable.
 
In Egypt, ousting Mubarak was a trifle compared to uprooting tyranny (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz) The release of American NGO activists from trial in Egypt raises questions about democracy - and about Egypt's ability to resist U.S. intervention.
 
Agreeing to disagree on Iran (Anne Gearan, Associated Press, Israel Hayom) Obama and Netanyahu were satisfied that the other side heard and understood his position on Iran – but neither claimed a significant change of heart.

Netanyahu's new right-hand man: Ya'akov Amidror (Barak Ravid, Haaretz) At this point, it seems that Amidror is the big winner from the Natan Eshel and Uzi Arad affairs.

Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.