News Nosh 02.26.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday February 26, 2016
 
You Must Be Kidding: 
"Netanyahu is the leader of the Israbluff camp. Everything about him is pretend. In the next election campaign we [Yisrael Beytenu] will not pledge our support to you as prime minister. We are the true Right, the real nationalist camp -- not you."
--Hardline right-wing leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, MK Avigdor Lieberman, said Netanyahu isn't right-wing enough.**


Breaking News:
Israeli security guard critically hurt in ax attack in West Bank
48-year-old security guard hospitalized with life-threatening wounds after being stabbed multiple times in a mall in the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. The attacker, believed to be a Palestinian who worked in the mall, fled. Palestinian workers were barred from entering the city. (Haaretz, Maariv, Israel Hayom and Ynet)

Front Page:
Haaretz
  • The accused in the murders in Duma was marked as a target for surveillance a year before the arson
  • Virtual reality // Yossi Verter
  • Collision course // Amos Harel
  • Dilemma in the US // Barak Ravid
  • Night routine // Amira Hass
  • Bennett thwarted an expansive project against racism that the head scientist initiated and forced him to resign
  • Sinkholes instead of beaches, floods instead of highways and industry instead of sea. If the situation continues this way – in another 20 years it will be impossible to bathe at the Dead Sea
  • Breakthrough Polish historian revealed crimes of Poles in Holocaust and was marked as an enemy of the state
Yedioth Ahronoth
Maariv Weekend (Hebrew links only)
  • Lieberman is on attack
  • Sara Netanyahu: “(Meni) Naftali is lying”
  • “We don’t have the privilege to be weak, we take comfort from unity of the people of Israel,” family of Major Eliav Gelman (RIP), who was killed in attack in Gush Etzion, refuses to break
  • 20 years since the imprisonment of the “Israeli Godfather”
  • Two-year-old in critical state – her parents were arrested
  • A ticket to the periphery // Kalman Libskind
  • Model for imitation: Is there a connection between the wave of the knife terror and the rising violence among Israeli youth?
  • Roadmap: How Donald Trump turned into the almost certain Republican candidate for President
  • The Egyptian answer: Dr. Tarek Fahmi, senior researcher in the Egyptian government, answers Jacky Khugi’s letter to President Al-Sisi
  • Money on the water: What is behind the alliance between Israel and Cyprus // Sara Leibovitz-Dar
Israel Hayom

News Summary:
**The bereaving of the family of Eliav Gelman, who was killed this week, the attack on the Netanyahu government by Yisrael Beitenu leader MK Avigdor Lieberman, and the appeal by Sara Netanyahu against the ruling in favor of her former employee, who sued her for mistreatment were top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers.

On the Palestinian front: Yedioth reported that Israel will transfer 500 million shekels in withheld taxes to the Palestinian Authority to improve the economic situation and hopefully, reduce the violence, and the papers reported that and Hamas told a Turkish paper that there was serious progress in talks between Turkey and Israel regarding the construction of a Gaza seaport. (Maariv) Also, former foreign minister in Gaza, hardliner Mahmoud Zahar, 71, said Hamas does not want war with Israel, “but if they are going to launch an aggression we have to defend ourselves.” Zahar, who has survived two Israeli assassination attempts, said the Gaza tunnels are defensive and that they cannot compare to Israel's military might. 

In diplomacy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck back in a friendly manner at his British counterpart David Cameron for the latter's comments about east Jerusalem construction – and also compared Hamas to ISIS. "Only Israeli sovereignty is preventing ISIS and Hamas from setting fire to the holy sites in the city, like they do elsewhere across the Middle East,” he said. (Maariv) And Canberra was miffed after Israeli President Reuven Rivlin cancelled his trip to Australia in order to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss security issues.

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