APN's daily news review from Israel
Thursday October 27, 2016
Quote of the day:
“Khaled’s blood cries out from the deathly silence that shrouds the empty classroom and from the flag in
the schoolyard, lowered to half-staff. His blood cries out from the circumstances surrounding his death; a
15-year-old boy whom soldiers chased with their jeep because they suspected that he had thrown stones at their
armored vehicle, until three soldiers got out and one shot him in the back from a distance of 20 meters, killing
him as he fled desperately for his life. His blood cries out from the total disinterest his killing generated in
Israel, as is the case with every killing of Palestinians. His blood cries out from the way this teenager, who
participated in a Jewish-Arab soccer project, was portrayed as a ‘terrorist.’”
--Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy writes about the lack of Israeli reaction to the killing of a Palestinian teenager by soldiers, whom the IDF found had killed him despite not being in danger.*
You Must Be Kidding:
“Too bad you weren’t burned to death in that tank."
--Supporter of Sgt. Elor Azariya, who is on trial for extrajudicial execution of a Palestinian assailant, verbally attacked journalist Amnon Abramovich outside the courthouse. Abramovich's face has scar burns from a war injury.**
--Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy writes about the lack of Israeli reaction to the killing of a Palestinian teenager by soldiers, whom the IDF found had killed him despite not being in danger.*
You Must Be Kidding:
“Too bad you weren’t burned to death in that tank."
--Supporter of Sgt. Elor Azariya, who is on trial for extrajudicial execution of a Palestinian assailant, verbally attacked journalist Amnon Abramovich outside the courthouse. Abramovich's face has scar burns from a war injury.**
Front Page:
Haaretz
- State Comptroller: IDF hid from Treasury billions of shekels added to pensions
- Senior IDF brass ‘pulled one over’ on the Accountant General // Meirav Arlosoroff
- Government advancing: Defense Minister to receive expansive authorities to limit freedom of citizens
- Republican nightmare: Will Democrats conquer the Senate? // Chemi Shalev
- The guards who shot to death two siblings at Kalandiya checkpoint will not stand trial
- Women closed the gap with men on alcohol consumption
- A lucid (Palestinian) voice // Haaretz Editorial
- So we killed // Gideon Levy
- Gender is trash and ‘Haaretz’ newspaper has shtetl policy: An interview with Irit Linor
Yedioth Ahronoth
- They’ve got Trump // Orly Azoulay with Trump supporters in Florida
- Polls in key states: Trump improved his situation
- In the service of the KGB: MKs and a general – Yedioth expose
- First photo: Peres’ gravestone
- “Senior journalist sexually assaulted me” – American journalist Danielle Berrin
- Rain expected today across most of the country
Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)
- Netanyahu demands hearing before publishing Operation Protective Edge report
- Security incident on border with Lebanon: Soldier lightly injured from shooting near Metullah
- Jerusalem of Trump
- UNESCO protest: The ambassador was recalled
- Battle of the pensions: State Comptroller vs. IDF
Israel Hayom
- 2,700 year old message to UNESCO – For the information of the hypocritical world: ‘Jerusalem’ written in Hebrew – in a document from the days of the First Temple
- The shame of UNESCO strengthens us // Dror Eydar
- After 100 years – 100 years since the Balfour Declaration // Zeev B. Begin
- This is how the IDF upgraded its pensions
- Second shooting incident in two days, first in north: Soldier lightly wounded, our forces returned fire
- Signs of winter: Today rain with a thunderstorm?
News Summary:
Israel recalled its ambassador to UNESCO after a softened resolution was passed that Israel still considered unacceptable, the State Comptroller revealed that the IDF had secretly increased pensions, and an Israeli soldier was lightly injured by a rare shooting from across the border with Lebanon making top stories along with the latest on US Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump. Also in Maariv, Internet surfers were furious about the verbal assault against Channel 2 commentator, Amnon Abramovich, who filmed with Amit Segal a feature story about the trial of Sgt. Elor Azariya.
Israel said it was recalling its UNESCO ambassador for consultations after the UN body passed another resolution about Israel’s policies towards Palestinians at holy sites. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu slammed the resolution and said that Israel was the only country in the region that allowed freedom of worship. The current resolution was softer in wording, noted Haaretz and Maan. However, Israel said that the resolution still “ignored Judaism's connection” to the holy site because it referred to the Temple Mount only by its Muslim name, Haram al-Sharif or Al-Aqsa Mosque. But Maan reported that a Palestinian representative to UNESCO said that the Geneva Conventions required the site to be referred to by the name that predated Israel's illegal occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967. He also said the resolution was "about occupation, not about a name." Indeed, the content of the resolution, which strongly condemned Israeli policies towards Muslim Palestinians at the holy site, has not been in the news.
And to further impress the point of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem from long ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority presented an ancient papyrus document that recorded shipment to king in ancient Hebrew script. And refers specifically to Jerusalem. [The Israeli Culture Minister and some of the papers said that the scroll was ‘stolen’ by Palestinians from a cave in the Judean Desert. But the Judean Desert is in the West Bank, which is not sovereign Israel. – OH]
**Also making the news in Maariv, a trailer for a documentary film by Channel 2 commentator Amnon Abramovich revealed an incident in which Abramovich was verbally attacked outside the trial of Sgt. Elor Azariya by one Azariya’s supporters. Talking about his film, Abramovich said: "We set out to examine political affiliations of the left and right in the army and the influence of the rabbis on the army. Azariya was a plot twist. It was not planned. But [the issue over] Azariya is not an exception, rather this is the situation in which the mantle of the military is replaced by the mantle of the locals. It’s a situation where the commander is [right-wing exremist] Baruch Marzel and not (Chief of Staff) Gadi Eisenkot. The film focuses on [the trial of Azariya] despite the fact that it was not the goal to begin with. We came to the conclusion that the IDF command is consistent and unified and not divided into right-wing, left-wing, religious or rabbis."
Quick Hits:
- Bill Would Give Defense Minister Broad Powers Against Israelis Deemed 'Public Safety' Threat - Proposed law would broaden power of defense minister to curb citizens’ freedoms, including restricting the professions a person could work in, forbidding them from leaving the country or having contact with certain individuals. (Haaretz+)
- Knesset committee considers opening administrative detention proceedings to public - The committee is set to discuss a proposal that would have administrative detention proceedings held before the public, in addition to allowing the justice minister, and not just the defense minister, to issue such warrants. (Ynet)
- Israel's justice minister says attorney general shouldn't make decisions over legislative issues - Responding to Ayelet Shaked's comment, deputy AG says that veto over legislation is an important tool - especially in cases of illegal acts. (Haaretz and Israel Hayom)
- Thirteen Charged With Inciting Violence, Terrorism at Radical Jewish Wedding - A video of the weeding, which took place last year, showed a celebration of the 2015 Jewish murder of the Dawabsheh family with youths dancing with guns, knives and a firebomb. (Haaretz and Israel Hayom)
- Israel closes case on guards who killed Palestinian siblings at checkpoint - The two young Palestinians were shot dead after the sister threw a knife at guards at the Qalandiyah crossing in the West Bank. (Haaretz+ and Maariv)
- Israeli Government Snubs Funeral for Arab Teen Killed Along Border With Egypt - 'If this had been a Jew there would have been a response to the shooting. It’s inconceivable that no one has spoken to us. I would have expected one of the ministers to come,' says Nimr Abu Amar's cousin. (Haaretz+ and Israel Hayom)
- Israeli forces detain well-known Palestinian activist Salah al-Khawaja - Al-Khawaja is a leader of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI), a Palestinian political party aiming to provide an alternative to Fatah and Hamas, as well as an activist for the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements. (Maan)
- Palestinian succumbs to wounds after a vehicular accident with Israeli settler - A Palestinian man succumbed on Wednesday to wounds sustained when an Israeli settler’s vehicle hit his horse-drawn cart a day earlier in the northwestern occupied West Bank district of Qalqiliya. (Maan)
- PM to meet state comptroller ahead of report on 2014 Gaza campaign - PM Netanyahu plans to present State Comptroller Yosef Shapira with minutes of 13 cabinet meetings discussing the threat posed by Hamas grid of terror tunnels. Meeting unusual as comptrollers are not usually privy to such sensitive security information. (Israel Hayom)
- 5 Palestinians injured in car crash with Israeli military vehicle - One of the injured told Ma'an that the Israeli army vehicle deliberately ran into their car to "try to flip it over." (Maan)
- Israeli-enforced demolitions in Jerusalem leave scores of Palestinians homeless - Three homes in the al-Ashqariya area of Beit Hanina north of Jerusalem were demolished Wednesday afternoon without prior notice, according to members of the families who were displaced as a result of the demolitions. Meanwhile in Silwan, an extended family of 30 Palestinians -- mostly children -- were displaced after the Jerusalem municipality rejected the family’s attempts to obtain building permits for nine years. (Maan)
- Israeli police detain 34 undocumented Palestinians workers Wednesday - Tens of thousands of Palestinian workers are forced to seek a living by working in Israel due to crippling unemployment in the occupied West Bank, as the growth of an independent Palestinian economy has been stifled under the ongoing Israeli military occupation, according to rights groups. (Maan)
- Israeli court sentences Palestinian to 17 years in prison over stabbing attack - The court jailed Saed Muhammad Qumbuz, a resident of the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem, and gave him 50,000 shekel ($13,000) fine for stabbing an Israeli soldier in December 2015. (Maan)
- In Historic Shift, Jewish Federations Representatives to Now Visit Israeli Settlements - JFNA and its predecessor organizations have had a longstanding policy of not officially traveling beyond Israel’s 1967 borders. In reality, however, representatives have already done so. (Haaretz+)
- Netanyahu's Former Home Caretaker’s Gun License Rescinded: “This is my only income, I’m at war” - Meni Naftali, who stands to lose his job, says sudden Public Security Ministry decision is proof that he is being persecuted. (Haaretz+ and Maariv)
- Security forces find 'abduction manual' used by terrorists - Document, believed to be in use by Gaza Strip-based terrorists, offers step-by-step instructions on best ways to choose target, avoid capture ("blend in ... speak Hebrew"), and get media attention. Advises abductors to keep captives sedated at all times. (Israel Hayom)
- Jewish-American Journalist: Prominent Israeli Journalists Sexually Assaulted Me - Danielle Berrin, a writer for the Jewish Journal, says the journalist forced himself on her during an interview in the U.S. (Haaretz and Maariv and Israel Hayom)
- Meretz MKs want Oren Hazan's immunity revoked - Following a court decision in a civil case that implicated the controversial Likud MK with hard drug use, MKs from the left-wing party demand that Hazan's immunity from prosecution be revoked, and that he be investigated. (Ynet)
- Secret Files Expose KGB Spies in Israel's Top Political and Military Echelon - Former Mapam leader Elazar Granot, a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee was a Soviet agent, according to documents uncovered by Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman. (Yedioth, p. 1 and Haaretz)
- Asylum Seekers From Darfur No Longer Being Sent to Israeli Detention Facility - Decision not to send Dafurians to Holot based on fact that most asylum seekers have not had their political asylum requests answered yet, immigration authority says. (Haaretz+)
- Trump Tells Supporters at Jerusalem Rally: Together, We Will Make America and Israel Safe Again - 'A Trump administration will never pressure Israel into a two-state solution or any other solution that is against the will of the Israeli people,' the GOP candidate's Israel adviser tells rally. Trump says he will make every effort to move embassy to Jerusalem. (Haaretz+, Israel Hayom and Ynet)
- WATCH Curt Schilling Grills Jake Tapper: Why Do Jews Vote for 'anti-Israel' Democrats - 'I don’t understand how people of Jewish faith can back the Democratic Party, which over the last 50 years has been so clearly anti-Israel, so clearly anti-Jewish Israel.' (JTA, Haaretz)
- Palestinian Security Forces Clash With Supporters of Abbas Rival in West Bank Refugee Camps - The incidents mark a clear escalation of tensions within Fatah between supporters of the Palestinian president and his exiled rival Mohammed Dahlan. (Haaretz+)
- PA arrests Fatah member after speaking out on being removed from office - Raafat Elayyan was arrested in his home in the village of Anata in the Jerusalem district of the occupied West Bank, shortly after he gave a televised interview commenting on his removal from office days earlier. (Maan)
- For first time, Israel abstains in UN vote on lifting Cuba embargo - Israel's decision to abstain made in conjunction with U.S., which also abstained for the first time amid warming relations between Washington and Havana. (Haaretz)
- Welcomed, but Uninterested: America’s Intermarried Jews Reject Jewish Outreach - Seventy-two percent of non-Orthodox American Jews marry non-Jews. But two decades of a dubious strategy to engage intermarried Jews by rebranding Jewish communal life as 'welcoming' and 'inclusive' has completely failed. (Haaretz+)
- ISIS Further Takes Over Iraqi Town Near Syrian Border - As coalition of forces moves on Mosul, ISIS expands area under their control in a remote western Iraqi town near the borders with Syria and Jordan. (Agencies, Haaretz)
- Iran's Revolutionary Guard Unveils New 'Suicide' Drone - News of the drone come after recent confrontations in the Gulf between US Navy and Iranian warships. (Agencies, Haaretz)
- Turkey Replaces Three Quarters of Police Chiefs as Post-coup Shakeup Continues - Since the failed putsch, Turkey has arrested 35,000 people and sacked or suspended more than 100,000 others in the civil service, judiciary, police and elsewhere. (Agencies, Haaretz)
Features:
The crash, the torture and the return: the only captive from the Sinai Campaign retells his
story
The pilot Yonatan Atkes, the only Israeli prisoner from that war, has been unable for 60 years to sleep more than two hours a night: "The nightmares from captivity returned when I stopped working." (Eyal Levy, Maariv)
Commentary/Analysis:
The pilot Yonatan Atkes, the only Israeli prisoner from that war, has been unable for 60 years to sleep more than two hours a night: "The nightmares from captivity returned when I stopped working." (Eyal Levy, Maariv)
Commentary/Analysis:
Death of Teen on Egypt Border Shows Israel Turns Blind Eye to Child Labor (Or Kashti, Haaretz+) Why was an Israeli Arab teen repairing Israel's border fence in the first
place? Far from the public eye and from politicians' hearts, Arab youths are falling between the
cracks.
Coalition chair helping turn Israel into a ‘monster’ (Ben-Dror Yemini, Yedioth/Ynet) The proposal to revoke the B’Tselem director’s citizenship weakens the relevant arguments against the organization and provides the radical left with ammunition to slander Israel abroad.
A Lucid Palestinian Voice (Haaretz Editorial) It would be a good thing if instead of panicking and strangling any attempt to present the Palestinian narrative, the Jewish audience were to learn something about the world and the desires of the men and women who live alongside it.
The tunnels report, Amona and the Attorney General’s probe: The fronts that Netanyahu faces (Dana Somberg, Maariv) The Knesset's winter session is about to begin and it brings a number of political issues that the Prime Minister will have to contend with: the ultimatum of Habayit Hayehudi that it will leave the government if Amona outpost is destroyed, the State Comptroller’s report on "Operation Protective Edge" and the tunnel problem and with high probability - a criminal investigation into Netanyahu himself.
*Khaled Bahar’s Blood Cries Out, but No One in Israel Hears It (Gideon Levy, Haaretz+) His blood cries out from the total disinterest his killing generated in Israel, as is the case with every killing of Palestinians.
What IDF should learn from battle for Mosul (Ron Ben-Yishai, Ynet) The ISIS military modus operandi in Iraq, which consists of offensive tunnels, snipers and special forces designed to take over communities and hinder coalition aerial bombardments, will likely be emulated by Hezbollah and Hamas during their next conflict with Israel.
We Won't Worship the Zionist Golden Calf. Deal With It (Samah Salaime Egbariya, Haaretz+) It’s clear why the government is so touchy when anyone dares question the official story of Israel.
Citizenship is not a commodity (Yossi Beilin, Israel Hayom) The defense minister would prefer if some 300,000 Israeli Arabs lived under Palestinian rule, but his words only inflict damage on Israel's global image.
A Black Curtain Falls Over Netanyahu's Rule (Noa Osterreicher, Haaretz+) The black screen that was stretched across Balfour Street to separate Women Wage Peace from the prime minister’s Jerusalem home last week is a fitting metaphor for Netanyahu’s interminable premiership.
A mildly cold war (Zalman Shoval, Israel Hayom) Unlike in the Soviet era, in the current clash of global powers in the Middle East, Israel has friendly relations with Russia and with players in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
What Trumpiness and Occupation Denial Have in Common (Chaim Landau, Haaretz+) The even-less-grounded cousin of truthiness is infecting U.S. political discourse. In Israel, where Israeli politicians and citizens avoid the term 'occupation' like the plague, it's about to mark its fiftieth year.
Coalition chair helping turn Israel into a ‘monster’ (Ben-Dror Yemini, Yedioth/Ynet) The proposal to revoke the B’Tselem director’s citizenship weakens the relevant arguments against the organization and provides the radical left with ammunition to slander Israel abroad.
A Lucid Palestinian Voice (Haaretz Editorial) It would be a good thing if instead of panicking and strangling any attempt to present the Palestinian narrative, the Jewish audience were to learn something about the world and the desires of the men and women who live alongside it.
The tunnels report, Amona and the Attorney General’s probe: The fronts that Netanyahu faces (Dana Somberg, Maariv) The Knesset's winter session is about to begin and it brings a number of political issues that the Prime Minister will have to contend with: the ultimatum of Habayit Hayehudi that it will leave the government if Amona outpost is destroyed, the State Comptroller’s report on "Operation Protective Edge" and the tunnel problem and with high probability - a criminal investigation into Netanyahu himself.
*Khaled Bahar’s Blood Cries Out, but No One in Israel Hears It (Gideon Levy, Haaretz+) His blood cries out from the total disinterest his killing generated in Israel, as is the case with every killing of Palestinians.
What IDF should learn from battle for Mosul (Ron Ben-Yishai, Ynet) The ISIS military modus operandi in Iraq, which consists of offensive tunnels, snipers and special forces designed to take over communities and hinder coalition aerial bombardments, will likely be emulated by Hezbollah and Hamas during their next conflict with Israel.
We Won't Worship the Zionist Golden Calf. Deal With It (Samah Salaime Egbariya, Haaretz+) It’s clear why the government is so touchy when anyone dares question the official story of Israel.
Citizenship is not a commodity (Yossi Beilin, Israel Hayom) The defense minister would prefer if some 300,000 Israeli Arabs lived under Palestinian rule, but his words only inflict damage on Israel's global image.
A Black Curtain Falls Over Netanyahu's Rule (Noa Osterreicher, Haaretz+) The black screen that was stretched across Balfour Street to separate Women Wage Peace from the prime minister’s Jerusalem home last week is a fitting metaphor for Netanyahu’s interminable premiership.
A mildly cold war (Zalman Shoval, Israel Hayom) Unlike in the Soviet era, in the current clash of global powers in the Middle East, Israel has friendly relations with Russia and with players in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
What Trumpiness and Occupation Denial Have in Common (Chaim Landau, Haaretz+) The even-less-grounded cousin of truthiness is infecting U.S. political discourse. In Israel, where Israeli politicians and citizens avoid the term 'occupation' like the plague, it's about to mark its fiftieth year.
Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.