Front Page News:

Haaretz

• IDF to establish three new ultra-Orthodox battalions if Tal Law is altered
• Life-savers or death merchants? Haaretz given rare access to the Mazor monkey-breeding farm on the eve of a High Court ruling on a petition by an animal rights group
• Caught on tape - New recording reveals how then-IDF chief and his aide coordinated their positions on the Harpaz affair
• Senior officials: Weinstein expected to accept Netanyahu's solution to Ulpana crisis
• Parents not immunizing: Fear of measles epidemic in north
• Migrants apartment set on fire in Jerusalem
• By pressure of Holocaust survivors, Wagner concert in Tel-Aviv cancelled

Yedioth Ahronoth

• The settlers: Likud ministers betrayed us - No majority for law: (Givat) Ulpana houses on way to being evacuated
• The writing is on the wall (Photo of building with "Leave the neighborhood" written on it) The hatred is burning: Vandals set an apartment on fire where 10 Eritrean infiltrators were sleeping
• "I am not a genius" - Deputy world chess champion Boris Gelfand not yet accustomed to spotlight.
• Celebrating Book Week
• Leading authors: Don't sell our books discounted

Maariv

• Suspicion: Iran built a third facility to enrich uranium
• The arson following the incitement - Apartment where 10 refugees from Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan live was set on fire yesterday near Machaneh Yehuda Market in Jerusalem
• Revealed: Money changing business in central Tel-Aviv is central to a network that kidnapped and tortured (African) refugees (Hebrew)
• A moment before we become refugees - Less than a month before the evacuation, Maariv follows Yael Shahak, a resident of Ulpana, who is on hunger-strike in the protest tent
• Free education from age 3: The race for nurseries (Hebrew)
• Commander of Air Force refuses to use German-made car (Hebrew)
• Nobel Prize laureate Dan Shechter opens exhibition of jewelry he designed

Israel Hayom

• No majority for Authorization Law; (Givat Ulpana) residents: "We won't give up"
• Rising suspicion that Iran is secretly building another uranium enrichment facility
• You thought food prices here were high? You were right
• 30 years to the Lebanon War
• Stabbing attack in Hebron: Border Police fighter lightly injured
• Apartment of infiltrators set on fire in Jerusalem
• Tel-Aviv University cancelled Wagner concert

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News Summary:
 A crazy plan gets legal backing and the passing of a controversial settlement bill appears to be averted making top news in Israeli newspapers today along with the arson attack on an apartment of African refugees and migrants. Meanwhile, Alan Dershowitz, a stalwart defender of Israel, says the Jewish state must freeze settlements and start peace talking and a Haaretz commentator notes that the people celebrating Israel in New York were mostly religious Orthodox Jews.
 
**It appears that the settlers and their supporters have lost the battle ahead of the vote on Wednesday in ther Knesset on the legalization of settlement outposts built on privately owned Palestinian land. Tension is reaching a peak as angry settlers reach Jerusalem by foot today - after marching from Givat Ulpana through other illegal outposts and through Palestinian villages - in order to increase pressure on the government and MKs ahead of a critical vote tomorrow. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein is expected to approve the problematic relocation of the five Givat Ulpana buildings to a former military zone on land that was appropriated from Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu proposed to saw the buildings and move them in pieces to the new site in a way to appease not only the settlers (who say they are not appeased), but his coalition partners Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) and Eli Yishai (Shas), who have said they will vote in favor of the bill. Netanyahu says that if passed, the bill would harm Israel's settlement expansion because of international opposition. Ynet reports that the settlers are 'flooding Likud ministers with emails, text messages and phone calls urging them to back the legislation.'  And the IDF fears they will be violent once they are evicted.

As Israel gears up for the clash, prominent American-Jewish Israel supporter Alan Dershowitz told the Wall Street Journal that Netanyahu should take advantage of his broad coalition to renew negotiations with the Palestinians

Tens of thousands of Israel supporters 'painted Fifth Avenue blue and white' on Sunday, to mark the annual Israel Day Parade, the Israeli papers reported yesterday. Only Haaretz's Chemi Shalev noted that the majority of the supporters were from Orthodox day schools in the New York and New Jersey areas.
Moreover, he reported that there was a campaign by right-wing activists to prevent a delegation of various Israel human rights groups, including Peace Now and B’Tselem, marching under the banner of the New Israel Fund, to participate. It failed, Shalev writes. And the delegation only got a few boos.
 

Quick Hits:

• Precedent: Rabbi to speak at mosque - Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger will speak at one of Paris' biggest mosques. Metzger met with the mosque's Imam Hassan Chalgoumi yesterday in Jerusalem. (Israel Hayom, p. 21)
• Judge: Secular father can drive kids on Shabbat - Family court rejects Orthodox mother's claim in custody case. (Haaretz)
• Officer lightly hurt in Hebron stabbing attack (Ynet)
• PM orders Defense Ministry to erect tent cities for African migrants (Haaretz)
• In unprecedented move, Israel's Foreign Ministry condemns violence against African migrants (Haaretz)
• Haifa threatens businesses that employ African migrants (Ynet)
• Minister: Incitement led to Jerusalem arson attack on migrants - Minister Aharonovitch: Public figures riding wave of hatred. (Ynet)
• Arab authors refuse to write next to Jewish ones - University of Texas will not publish a collection of stories of women from Middle East, following demand to remove Israeli writings. (Maariv, p. 8)
• 2,000 year old treasure found in Kiryat Gat (Ynet)
• Wall Street Journal: Israeli singer Rita is a hit in Iran - Iran-born Rita's new album sung in Persian is sold secretly in Iran and youth dance to her songs at underground clubs. (Yedioth, p. 18)
• Tunisian director faces harsh criticism from home over Israel visit - Nadia El Fani's visit for Democracy and Religion Forum elicits harsh reactions but she says: 'I have always opposed Zionist Israel, I will do it in Tel Aviv too.' (Ynet)
• Kuwaiti gets 10 years for Twitter blasphemy (Agencies, Ynet)
• UN nuclear watchdog chief: Fresh round of talks with Iran to take place Friday - IAEA head Yukiya Amano says agency will meet Friday with representatives of Islamic Republic; diplomats in Vienna claim Iran has not shifted its stance since Amano's visit to Tehran two weeks ago. (Agencies, Haaretz)
• Syria army kills 15 in shelling near Turkey border (Agencies, Haaretz)
• Syria rebels say they are no longer committed to Annan plan - Opposition forces call for no-fly zone, Libya-style intervention by international community to end Assad's rule. (Agencies, Haaretz)

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Features:

Blind woman foresees trends for IDF Despite being blind from birth, Cece has been working in classified role in elite IDF intelligence unit for past 15 years. (Yedioth and Ynet)

Commentary/Analysis:

Netanyahu, go to Ulpana (Dan Margalit, Israel Hayom) The prime minister should go to Ulpana and ask the residents of the disputed buildings to cooperate with the government voluntarily.

Muffling the protests of the real victims (Akiva Eldar , Haaretz) We will all have to pay the costs of the Ulpana affair, even as the police investigation has yet to yield a single arrest or indictment.
 
Lebanon War was no deception (Yitzhak Laor, Haaretz) As a rule, Israelis are unable to repent. The dead have been forgotten. The tens of thousands of dead on the other side are not even counted here. Now on to Iran.

The war that changed all wars (Giora Eiland, Yedioth) The Lebanon War "was the first limited war, not total war, the first 'war of choice' and the first against an organization (PLO) and not a state. Today we see in the world more and more limited wars and wars against organizations not states....Experience shows that most states that fight wars of this new type...pay a price for trying to battle a 'regular war' when the situation has changed. We also paid that price and the question is did we learn from it. The most important lesson from the first Lebanon War was the need to recognize that in this type of war there is a great gap between the military's ability and between the expectations of the politicians, the media, and the public. There are four natural expectations: for an absolute victory, for a quick victory, for a victory without a significant price in casualties and to avoid hurting innocent people. The first three are based on the classic military advantage, the fourth comes from understanding that in a war of choice it's better also to be right and not just strong. But in actuality, the military cannot live up to these expectations...The conclusion is that wars should be planned differently: alongside the usual military considerations, one must give great weight to other sources whose influence in the end is much greater than a comparison of the military divisions of each side.

Israeli leadership suffers from unilateral withdrawal syndrome (Moshe Arens, Haaretz) Civilians have now become equal partners with the Israel Defense Forces in the war against Israel's enemies. That is not the way it was supposed to be.

The height of Ariel Sharon's folly (Uri Milstein, Haaretz) Like all military attempts to create a new world order, Israel's first war in Lebanon was doomed to fail.

Everyone's lie (Ofer Shelach, Maariv) We didn't learn much in the first Lebanon War. 30 years after it broke out, the attitude towards enemies in the field is still as if they were an existential threat on the level of the Holocaust...The debate broke out again over the question whether then prime minister Menachem Begin  knew of Ariel Sharon's plans, and did Sharon tell Begin and the government ministers the truth and all the truth before the start of the war?...What we should have learned then that we still haven't: War is too important to leave it to the generals. Civil society, from the regime to the other institutions, must take responsibility.

Taking the offensive at UN (Daniel Nisman, Ynet) Even against overwhelming odds, Israel’s UN mission can boast impressive achievements.
 
On Root / Let's make a deal, Israeli-style (Jeremy Benstein, Haaretz) This being the Middle East with its shuk or souk mentality, people are always haggling about something.

Time to take a stand (Dror Eydar, Israel Hayom) To sabotage the settlement enterprise is to strike at conservatives' ability to govern.

Mass imprisonment (Haaretz Editorial) Israel can't ignore the refugees from war who are knocking at its gates, and certainly not those who are already living here. Incitement, hate-mongering and mass detentions won't solve anything.

Play by the rules (Dr. Haim Shine, Israel Hayom) A compromise will strengthen the settlement enterprise and protect democracy.
 
On the way to Eritrea (Sefi Rachlevsky, Haaretz) The refugees make the long journey from Eritrea to Israel, barefoot; the Netanyahu government makes the opposite trip, making Israel bare of liberal democracy, turning it into an Eritrea of sorts.

 

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