News Nosh 07.24.15

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday July 24, 2015
 
Quote of the day:
"It’s good Mr. Iliatov did not require that a judge needed to have served in the Border Police."
--Arab MK Ahmed Tibi reacts to new MK Robert Iliatov's stated requirement that candidates sing Hatikva to be appointed as judges.


Front Page:
Haaretz
Yedioth Ahronoth
  • We aren’t alone? NASA’s exciting discovery: Earth’s ‘twin brother’
  • Special interview: Lieberman: Netanyahu is not capable of dealing with the Iranian threat – it’s too big a problem for him
  • Senators to Kerry: Iran fleeced and bamboozled you
  • Police: (Singer) Eyal Golan was not wiretapped
  • Sex crimes against the flowers of Beersheva – Moshe Zada, director of youth choir, suspected of harming 15 children
  • The protest of Lee Matt’s family – Parents of paratrooper who was killed in Operation Protective Edge, First Sgt. Lee Matt, found a way to express their frustration from the Defense Ministry’s adamant refusal to include the names of the siblings of their dead son on the gravestone: “Leelik was killed on Bibi and Bouji (Defense Minister Yaalon)’s guard,” they inscribed on his gravestone
  • Jerusalem Mayor Barekat against Beitar Jerusalem soccer team owner Eli Tabib: “He is blackmailing Beitar”
Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)
  • The secret agreement with Iran – The hearing in the Senate revealed: Agreement between Teheran and the world powers includes appendixes that were not yet published and deal with nuclear supervision
  • On the way to Congress // Ben Caspit writes from NY that Netanyahu, Sheldon Adelson, AIPAC and the Republicans all know that the battle over the nuclear agreement is “a rearguard action”
  • SPF // Udi Segal writes that Israel needs to take advantage of the statements by the world powers that they understand Israeli fears in order to set a new target: action plan against all the other issues not in the agreement
  • The Iranian threat // Ran Adelist writes that the job of the security establishment is to intensify threats and that works as an ‘I told you so,’ it preserves alertness within the system and it’s important to demand budgets
  • Poll: Majority of US Jews support approval of agreement with Teheran
  • The next planet
  • New and exciting discoveries about the liberation of Jerusalem during the Six Day War
  • Dramatic turn in the Eyal Golan affair: Police believe his house was not wiretapped
  • Senior defense ministry official: “We will go to High Court against Locker (report)”
  • Director of Beersheva youth choir suspected of sexual harassment of 15 of his apprentices
  • World wonder faces environmental danger, Dead Sea faces risk of death
  • Boycott will pursue: What I learned in the stronghold of the radical left-wing in the US
Israel Hayom
  • “Kerry, they bamboozled you” – Listen and don’t believe: According to secret article in nuclear agreement – The Iranians themselves will collect samples from the Parchin military facility
  • It’s worse than a crime, it’s idiocy // Boaz Bismuth
  • 70,000 travelers, 430 incoming and outgoing flights (yesterday)
  • Dramatic development in affair of suspicion of wiretapping of Eyal Golan
  • The bad luck of pilot’s course #164
  • “The Treasury is delaying monies for building fence in the south”
  • Earth, twin brother
  • Report: Israel transferred helicopters for war against ISIS
  • Soon: Special hotline to help relatives of people who died
  • Because of a short circuit: ‘Mul Yam’ restaurant burned down  

 
News Summary:
A ‘twin brother’ for planet Earth, a ‘hidden’ article in the Iran nuclear agreement, and the results of the vote to choose Knesset members who will sit on the committees to appoint civil and religious judges were top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers.

The papers were in a storm over the revelation at the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that an article in the nuclear agreement with Iran stated that the Iranians would take the sample to be examined by the IAEA. Political sources in Jerusalem told Maariv that they were satisfied from the fact that hearing exposed what they perceived as holes in the agreement. Other Israeli political sources in Jerusalem told Yedioth that the hearing proved that the world powers crossed many red lines in the agreement. Diplomatic sources in New York said that the assessments, according to which Iran’s economy will improve greatly immediately after the removal of sanctions, were exaggerated and wrong, Maariv reported, because the sanctions are not the only cause of Iran’s economic woes: the regime is corrupt and bureaucratic. Maariv added that a poll by the US weekly ‘Jewish Journal’ found that a majority of US Jews support the Iran nuclear agreement.

Meanwhile, the right-wing achieved veto power on the all-important panel to appoint judges. The two seats for Knesset members were taken by Likud MK Nurit Koren and Yisrael Beiteinu MK Robert Iliatov, after a deal between their party leaders won them the vote in Knesset.

After he won, Iliatov sparked a storm when he said that he wouldn’t appoint judges that wouldn’t sing ‘Hatikva,’ the Israeli national anthem that describes Israeli nationalism in exclusively Jewish terms. Israeli Arabs normally don’t sing the anthem and Iliatov’s declaration suggested he would not appoint Arab judges. Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (Joint List) responded: "It’s good Mr. Iliatov did not require that a judge needed to have served in the Border Police." (Maariv) Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon insisted that such a requirement would ‘incite against minorities.’ MK Itsik Shmuli (Zionist Camp) said: "Iliatov’s words are groundless and I am telling you this as someone who sings Hatikva with all his heart. What exactly are they going to do? Hold a Pop Idol competition for judges who will have to sing instead of proving professional capability. This is a dangerous trend of harm to the High Court." Zionist Camp MKs Ayelet Nahmias said, "MK Iliatov's statement that he will not appoint a judge who won’t sing Hatikva is outrageous and racist. We’re talking about a racist who is a member of a political party with a racist legacy a racist leader. The bloc of the right-wing plans to use his rights on the Committee to appoint judges in order to exclude and oppress the minorities and cultures in Israel.” Peace Now Secretary General Yariv Oppenheimer said: "The remarks espouse a racist world view bordering on fascism. You cannot force an Arab citizen voice to sing the words ‘Jewish soul yearns’ and it does not in any way indicate his attitude toward the state and towards being a citizen with equal rights."
 
 
Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.