APN's daily news review from Israel

Sunday February 8, 2015

Number of the day:

---

Front Page:

Haaretz

• Crisis deepens: Vice President will also boycott Netanyahu’s speech
• Scorched earth speech // Chemi Shalev
• Iran’s secret weapon // Barak Ravid
• Biden will beat Netanyahu in elections // Tal Niv
• Save Israel from its Jewish friends // Yossi Sarid
• Hundreds of thousands of shekels to yeshiva in Hebron defined as a Torah group
• 13% of state budget transferred without supervision through Knesset Finance Committee
• The (Shiite rebel) Houthis dissolved parliament in Yemen and completed the coup
• Detainees under observation shackled to bed despite criticism by courts
• Israel Bar Association: “Prison Service harassing us because of severe report”
• Merkel: Solution in Ukraine won’t be reached with military force
• All the methods for increasing the registration fees of students

• The rift (photos of Netanyahu and Biden)
• The speech of the empty seats // Eitan Haber
• Despite you being right, don’t go // Ben-Dror Yemini
• Hug for Herzog – First photo of meeting between (Israeli opposition leader) Herzog and US Vice President Biden
• Bennett’s condition: If Ayelet Shaked doesn't receive the Public Security Ministry, we won’t join the government
• Lieberman’s condition: Without Defense Ministry, I won’t enter the government
• Before the cancer wins – Yamit Karnat, 42, has one month to live and did not give up the desire to celebrate the bar-mitzvah and birthdays of her sons
• Murder in the nursing home
• On the backs of the passengers – Israel Train Authority warns of disruptions today, the union reassures and all the passengers are confused

• The battle over Congress
• Iranian Foreign Minister: If the talks fail – Rouhani will pay the price
• Tragedy in New Zealand: Israeli killed in road accident
• Lieberman: Netanyahu erred when he apologized to Turkey over the (killing of 9 Turks on the) Marmara
• Transportation Minister intervening in the light rail project: Fears delay of another five years

• A deal at any price – Sharp criticism in ‘Washington Post’ against Obama and the negotiations with Iran
• “Herzog crossed a red line, attacking the government from abroad is not done”
• Teheran’s lies: “Moderate” ambition - for a bomb // Boaz Bismuth
• Knock on the door: Netanyahu must go (to Congress) // Dror Eydar
• Suspicion of murder at nursing home: 90-year-old killed after brawl with 82-year-old roommate
• Mercurial weather: After poppies in the south – dust and rain; storm on the way
• Books, ladies and gentlemen, books: Int’l book fair opens in Jerusalem this evening

---

Election 2015 Polls:
Latest Yedioth poll puts Zionist Camp one seat ahead of Likud and Habayit Hayehudi drops to 12 seats.
  
News Summary:
Another cancellation to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress – this one from US Vice President Joe Biden – makes top story in today’s Hebrew newspapers as Israeli Opposition leader Isaac Herzog gets a hug from the VP.
 
The papers, with the obvious exception of the ‘Netanyahu mouthpiece,’ Israel Hayom, reported extensively on the opposition to Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress next month. ADL's Abe Foxman called on Netanyahu to cancel his address as did leaders of Israeli left and center-left parties, saying it was an election ploy that will harm Israel. Two prominent black Democrats also announced they won't attend the speech. Interestingly, Israeli Deputy Tzachi Hanegbi (Likud) suggests the Republican who invited Netanyahu misled him.

Alongside these reports was a photo of Labor leader Herzog hugging with Biden. Herzog is in Munich attending the Security Conference and according to Yedioth, avoided criticism of the Israeli government, but when asked if he would have given the speech to Congress Herzog said no, thank you, suggesting it harms Israel's 'strategic allegiance' with the US. Likud accused Herzog of crossing all lines by criticizing government while abroad. Israel Hayom ran a poll that said that 42% of Americans support Netanyahu giving his speech in Congress. Ynet’s Elior Levy reported that Palestinian officials even said that Netanyahu’s Congress speech helps their cause.
 
Meanwhile, Maariv emphasized in a one-page article the ‘warning’ by Iran’s Foreign Minister that the failure of nuclear talks could herald the end of pragmatic Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's career.
  
Separately, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry ended his seven-year tenure here with a warning to Israelis that settlement building is leading Israel to one state with no Palestinian Authority security coordination. Nickolay Mladenov, Bulgaria's former foreign and defense minister, will replace Serry.

Quick Hits:

---

Features:

Did Israel's National Library steal priceless books - or save them?
Gish Amit alleges that the National Library pilfered Torahs belonging to Yemenite Jews and books owned by Arabs to advance the Zionist enterprise. That may be true, but so what? (Tom Segev, Haaretz+)  
Russian-born Israelis are moving west, seeking a better future
Twenty-five years after the last major wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union, middle-class Russian-speaking families are emigrating. (Haaretz+)  
The scandal-to-scandal (to scandal) guide to the Israeli election, 2015
Accusations of embezzlement, illegal monitoring of opponents, meddling in U.S. politics, flawed primaries, mutual mudslinging and underhand recordings join the ever-growing list. (Haaretz+) 
US billionaire Abraham 'doesn't know' how much money he gave to V15
How can it be that Slim-Fast billionaire Daniel Abraham -- chief donor to the campaign aiming to unseat Netanyahu -- doesn't know how much money he gave? Who is S. Daniel Abraham who says he is "helping Israel obtain the best prime minister it can have?" (Miri Eden, Israel Hayom)
Who are the biggest contributors to politics in Israel? Many live in New York and Miami
Here are profiles of a few of the biggest overseas contributors to Israel’s politicians, the people whose money will have a lot to do with who forms the next government. (Shuki Sadeh, Haaretz+)
'Not Allenby, not Jerusalem and not 1917'
A new study reveals that some 20 photos purporting to depict the historic arrival of General Allenby in Jerusalem after its conquest by the British are mistakenly attributed. (Nir Hasson, Haaretz+)
 
Commentary/Analysis:

Iran's secret weapon: Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel (Barak Ravid, Haaretz+) The prime minister insists he must speak to Congress to stop a nuclear deal with Iran, but he's actually sabotaging Israel's most precious asset. 
Don't disqualify Zoabi from running in elections (Haaretz Editorial) The attempt to ban Haneen Zoabi is not only legally unjustified, but severely compromises the right of the Arab public to choose its representatives. 
Israel must ensure tension with Hezbollah, Hamas doesn't escalate (Amos Harel, Haaretz+) Israel knows any move will be met with retaliation. The important thing is to keep things under control and stop the chain of events before it leads to a wider confrontation.
A salute to John Baird (David M. Weinberg, Israel Hayom) Canada's bold foreign minister demonstrated that it is possible to engage in moral diplomacy in a cynical worldץ
Israel's official religion is not Judaism; it's the Holocaust (Benny Ziffer, Haaretz+) The family portrayed in the daring TV comedy-drama series 'Zagouri Empire' doesn't believe in coerced sadness on Holocaust Day.
Benny Gantz says goodbye to term as head of IDF (Nahum Barnea, Yedioth/Ynet) The head of Israel's armed forces leaves office in just over a week, after a term in which the region fell apart and Islamic terror groups seized swathes of neighboring states. But the man whose final summer of service included the abduction and murder of three Israeli teens and the subsequent war in Gaza has learned a vital lesson about the fighting spirit of his compatriots.
Beware: Republican Jews on the warpath (Yossi Sarid, Haaretz+) A campaign of intimidation is underway to stop Democratic lawmakers from skipping Netanyahu's upcoming Congress speech. God, save us from our Jews. 
Justice, Egyptian style – a long, sharp shock (Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz+) The 25-year sentence handed down to a leading activist from the 2011 revolution sends a clear message to Egyptians ahead of this spring’s parliamentary elections.
Stop kidding yourselves, Israelis want Netanyahu as leader (Rogel Alpher, Haaretz+) Pundits are telling the Zionist Camp to take the battle to the prime minister more, but they're ignoring both history and the modern reality.
An election of Jewish values (Rabbi Donniel Hartman, Ynet) It's been a long time since we had elections campaign as important to the future of Israel as we do now. Our vote will not be about a peace agreement, but rather on the values that would lead to it.
Zionist Camp reveals its true, racist face (Gideon Levy, Haaretz+) The party that some hoped would defend Israeli democracy from attacks by the right wing has now joined the assault. 
The Likud is right: Security and diplomacy are the real election issues (Amnon Abramovich, Yedioth/Ynet) The 2015 vote must not focus on Netanyahu's alleged corruption but on his biggest failures: Preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold state and the shattered relationship with America.
Sayed Kashua is free to write. So he's bidding farewell  (Sayed Kashua, Haaretz+) It's tremendously difficult when the existential feeling of being a persecuted minority begins to disintegrate. 
Israel's Arabs should join forces with sane Zionists (Kobi Richter, Yedioth/Ynet) Arab citizens who want to live in peace and equality with Israel's Jews don’t have to become Zionist, but they can help replace the nationalistic-aggressive government with a democratic peace government.
Scorched earth created by Netanyahu's Congress speech is spreading (Chemi Shalev, Haaretz+) And now the prime minister's loyalists plan to pour even more high-octane fuel on the burning fires of U.S.-Israeli relations.
How the European Union is building Palestine
(Emily Amrousi, Israel Hayom) Area C is defined by the Oslo Agreement as being under full Israeli control, but the reality is very different. With the support of the EU, permanent Palestinian Bedouin villages are popping up around Jerusalem. The EU inserts a wedge into the conflict. 
Would you buy an empty bottle from this man? (Carlo Strenger, Haaretz+) We now have a prime minister who can no longer distinguish between his personal interests and Israel’s, someone exhibiting the megalomania of a Chavez and the paranoia of a Nixon.
ZOA opposes election slate that promotes BDS (Morton Klein and Elizabeth Berney, Israel Hayom) The Zionist Organization of America sets the record straight.
Patriotism according to Netanyahu (Tami Arad, Yedioth/Ynet) As far as Israel's prime minister is concerned, there is no such thing as a political center: If you are a leftist, you are no patriot; and if you claim to be a centrist, you are a leftist in disguise. 
Guilt by association? (Mati Tuchfeld, Israel Hayom) Labor leader Isaac Herzog denies any connection to OneVoice and the Victory 2015 campaign, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman's flirtation with the Left ends. V15's attacks on PM's wife backfire.
The Republicans will be no tougher on Iran than Obama (Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, Haaretz+) Their bluster and tough-talk may fool Israel's prime minister, but when it comes to actions, the Republicans lack resolve. 
The return of Fatah-sponsored terrorism (Nadav Shragai, Israel Hayom) After laying down their arms in 2007, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- the military wing of the Palestinian Fatah party -- have resumed terrorist activity. They vow that the armed struggle with Israel will only intensify.
Who are you, Netanyahu voters? And why? (Uri Misgav, Haaretz+) For the second time, Likud is not even bothering to publish a party platform ahead of the elections, belaying a supreme level of condescension for voters. 

Interviews: 

'Israel is the mirror of the world'
Jean Plantureux, Le Monde's chief cartoonist and close friend of the Charlie Hebdo attack victims, believes that by understanding Israel can the French understand their own society; due to arrive in Jerusalem next week, he wants to see the French condemn anti-Semitism as they did the attack on the famous magazine. (Interviewed by Elad Zeret in Ynet)
 
'I don't compromise on history'
Most Israelis only encounter Jamal Zahalka, the head of the Arab party Balad, on television. Dror Eydar sat down with him for a surprising conversation. Zionism raped history, he asserts, but refuses to recognize the truth behind Temple Mount archeology. (Interviewed by Dror Eydar in Israel Hayom)

'How dare you call us traitors?'
V15 founders Itamar Weizman and Nimrod Dweck have had a boost in recent days thanks to accusations from Likud; but the two insist they are non-partisan and that the claims against them are ridiculous. (Interviewed by Yehuda Shohat in Ynet)
 

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