APN's daily news review from Israel

Thursday October 10, 2013

Number of the day:

175.
--Number of pupils in lock-down in their school in the village of Jalud, while Israeli settlers attacked.**

Front Page News:

Haaretz

• Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to Israeli researchers who emigrated to US
• Israel to legislators in Congress: Don't ease sanctions on Iran
• France and Britain: We do not rule out easing sanctions
• Top people of coffee franchises exchanged messages: "We won't lower prices"
• Moshe Katzav hired new lawyers and will request a retrial
• Ultra-Orthodox student to High Court: Don't fund party lists that don't have women

Yedioth Ahronoth

• Honor - Noble prize in chemistry to two Israeli-American scientists
• My friends // Prof. Ada Yonat
• Are they one of us? // Raanan Shaked
• Chess champion - European children's chess champion is also Israeli
• The horrible flight from Thailand - El-AL flight made emergency landing in Eritrea

Maariv

• Two Israelis won the Noble Prize in chemistry, one of every four lecturers leaves (the country)
• Happiness over the award and sorrow over the braindrain // Prof. Menachem Ben Sasson (Hebrew)
• Lapid vs. Netanyahu: The Palestinians don't need to recognize Israel as a Jewish state
• Death of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in center of Shas local election campaign (Hebrew)
• Where is the shame? // Ben-Dror Yemini
• Rabbi Moshe Yosef: "If this man is here, I'm not here", Rabbi Yehuda Azrad: "You want to start wars now or after the mourning period" - Sharp confrontation between Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's son and Deri's assistant during the funeral, signifying the revolution of the Shas court

Israel Hayom

• The Nobel is (almost) ours
• Another reason for pride: 10-year-old Israel - European chess champion
• Stop the braindrain // Dan Margalit
• "Iran's offer - a joke" - Teheran offers to freeze uranium enrichment at 20% in exchange for easing of sanctions
• Zaken felt ill, and her testimony was postponed
• Mistaken shooting again from Syria: Two soldiers lightly wounded from shell
• 3 years after being convicted of rape: Katzav expected to request retrial
• Shelly Yachimovich's admission: "I smoked drugs in my youth"

Peace Talks Highlights:
The top story in Israeli papers today was that an Israeli who left to the US because he couldn't get tenure in Israel got the Nobel prize. But on the peace front, Haaretz reported that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal called for the end to talks with Israel and Maariv reported that right-wing MKs blasted Finance Minister Yair Lapid for saying that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state should not be a condition for a peace agreement.

Speaking in Ankara, where he met with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, Mashaal claimed that continuing the talks would endanger the status of Jerusalem and therefore must be stopped. He urged an armed struggle. The article noted that "According to recent reports, Hamas is seeking a rapprochement with Iran and Hezbollah, which may explain Meshal's belligerent declarations in Beirut. However, the Hamas leadership has denied a strengthening of ties with Tehran. "
 
Protests were heard in the Knesset Wednesday after MKs learned that Finance Minister Yair Lapid told 'Charlie Rose in an interview that Israel does not need Palestinian recognition of it as a Jewish state. MK Miri Regev called it 'defeatist' and MK Tzipi Hotovely said the lack of recognition, 'Proves they will continue to act against us." (NRG Hebrew)
 
Iran-related News:
Israel poo-poos the Iranian nuclear offer and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon tells his US counterpart that easing sanctions will cause them to collapse, but the French and British disagree and come to Israel to tell the Israelis that an interim deal with Iran is on the horizon. The Iranian Foreign Minister falls ill because of a newspaper headline and Iran announces the development of a new Israel-reaching missile.
 
High-ranking British and French diplomats arrived in Israel on Wednesday to update their Israeli counterparts, ahead of the talks between Iran and the 'six powers' scheduled to begin in Geneva on Tuesday, Haaretz's Barak Ravid wrote. The diplomats' visit comes on the day the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran plans to submit a proposal purportedly similar to the one submitted by the six powers to Iran more than six months ago. Iran did not respond to that offer then. The offer includes limiting uranium enrichment to under the 20% line and possibly closing the fortified underground site at Qom where uranium is being enriched to 20%. Officials in Jerusalem reject the proposal and Strategic Affairs, Intelligence and International Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz called the Iranian gesture "a joke." Others said the Iranians were recycling old, irrelevant ideas. Meanwhile, Yaalon told his US counterpart, Chuck Hagel, at the Pentagon that the easing of Iran sanctions will cause their collapse.
 
But the British and French officials told their Israeli counterparts that they disagreed with Jerusalem's argument that any letup of the sanctions would lead to a breakdown of the entire sanctions mechanism and that the 'six powers'' plan was to lift sanctions on Iran's trade in gold and petrochemical products, but not on oil, or restrictions on the banking system, Ravid wrote. Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Tehran has more enriched uranium than it needs, will use it as bargaining chip in Geneva talks next week.
 
Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Minister accused a hardline local newspaper of sending him to hospital. Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif  said he was so upset by a paper misquoting him as as saying President Hassan Rouhani's phone call with President Barack Obama was a mistake, that he fell ill.

Iran also announced yesterday that it has developed a new drone capable of reaching Israel.
 

Quick Hits:

• **Israelis attack school in Palestinian village, torch olive groves - Apparent "price-tag" attack likely in response to razing of nearby illegal settler outpost by security forces. Palestinian children locked in classrooms for safety, 400 olive trees burned, five cars vandalized. IDF arrests four assailants from illegal settlement near Shilo, but pupils from Jalud village say at least 20 settlers involved. (Haaretz, Israel Hayom and Maan)
• Israeli gunboats open fire at Gaza fishermen, locals say - Witnesses told Ma'an that Israeli navy forces fired shells at fishermen off Gaza's coast. An Israeli army spokeswoman said an IDF boat had fired "warning shots in the air" when a fishing boat deviated from the Israeli designated area. (Maan and NRG Hebrew)
• Jerusalem cemetery attack strikes nerve with Christians - Protestant Cemetery of Mount Zion, one of city's most important historic graveyards, vandalized by Jewish settler youths. Police arrest, but release, four suspects, two of them minors. "We are striving so hard to promote dignity," says Rev. Hosam Naoum. (Israel Hayom)
• Witnesses: Student injured by rubber bullet near Bethlehem - Israeli forces shot a student in the foot with a rubber-coated steel bullet near Bethlehem at a school in the village of al-Khader on Wednesday. (Maan)
• IDF destroys Syrian cannon that fired mortars on Golan - Tamuz missile hits cannon, which fired two mortars at Golan Heights earlier in the day, lightly injuring two IDF soldiers. (Ynet)
• Elections in Tel-Aviv: Likud party against the muezzin in Jaffa - Flyers distributed ahead of local elections call to "Shut up the muezzin." The Islamic Movement: "This is not noise, but a call to prayer." Likud-Beiteinu: "It is unreasonable that there is Palestinian autonomy a few kilometers from the center of the city."(Maariv, p. 12/NRG Hebrew)
• Right-wing lawyer Ben-Gvir: "You (Israeli Arabs) are terrorists", Arab MK Zahalka: "Kiss my shoe" - Bitter debate in High Court over Marmara affair. In response to appeal to High Court to demand Attorney General indict MK Haneen Zouebi (Balad) for her participation in Turkish Marmara flotilla (to free Gaza), Zouebi called for Netanyahu, Barak and Ashekenazi to be put on trial. (Maariv, p. 13/NRG Hebrew)
• Israeli election committee asked to ban parties running 'racist' campaigns - Labor MK protest anti-Muslim messages by Likud party ahead of the municipal elections in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and elsewhere. (Haaretz)
• Villagers visit farmland for first time in 13 years - Landowners from Zaatara village east of Bethlehem entered their lands in Jab al-Theeb area for the first time in 13 years after it was closed by the Israeli army. After the Israeli army closed it, settlers fenced it off. But in 2009, Yesh Din Israeli human rights organization made an appeal to Israeli authorities to remove the fence and allow its owners in. (Maan)
• Palestine, Israel officials argue at IPU summit - Heated arguments erupted between Palestinian and Israeli delegations in meetings during the 129th summit of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva, and during meetings of the Middle East Committee of the IPU between the Israeli and the Venezuelan delegations, which ended with withdrawal of the Israeli delegation. (Maan)
• Arabs furious at Czech Jerusalem remarks - Czech ambassador in Cairo summoned after president discusses moving embassy to Israeli capital. (Agencies, Ynet)
• Palestinian officials: Czech embassy to remain in Tel Aviv - Officials in the Czech republic have denied that the country has plans to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Palestinian officials said Wednesday. (Maan)
• Nobel laureate: We left because Warshel didn't get tenure in Israel
• Chemistry prize winner Michael Levitt recalls route to scientific breakthrough, illustrating Israel's brain-drain problem in matter-of-fact terms. (Ynet)
• Science Minister Peri: Nobel win shines light on brain drain - Peri congratulated Prof. Arieh Warshel for winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and said, "Warshel continues in the unprecedented line of Israeli Nobel Prize winners, but at the same time he shines a light on the real national challenge of reversing the brain drain." (Ynet)
• Testimony in corruption case postponed as former PM's top aide hospitalized - Ehud Olmert's former aide Shula Zaken takes ill after telling of financial, romantic relationship with state witness, who has died since. (Haaretz)
• Man injured as Israeli forces raid Jenin - Israeli forces raided Jenin early Wednesday, leading to clashes with local Palestinians. Muhammad Ashour Zakarneh, 20, was hit by a tear gas canister and hospitalized. (Maan)
• Egypt court announces trial for ex-president - Ousted President Mohammed Morsi and 14 members of his Muslim Brotherhood group will be tried before a criminal court. (Agencies, Haaretz)
• Egyptian Foreign Minister: "If necessary - we will also attack Gaza" - Egyptian regime continues its military campaign in the Sinai Peninsula and accuses Hamas of aiding Jihad elements. Resident of Gaza: The destruction of the tunnels created an unbearable reality. (Maariv, p. 10/NRG Hebrew)
• U.S. freezes military assistance to Egypt, pending democratic progress - Military support for counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation and security in the Sinai Peninsula will continue. (Agencies, Haaretz)
• Arab Spring to cost Middle East $800 bln, HSBC estimates - HSBC predicted that at the end of 2014, GDP in the seven hardest-hit countries would be 35% lower than it would have been if the 2011 uprisings had not happened. (Agencies, Ynet)

Features:

Who will save the sheikh's palace?
Negev Bedouin try to preserve historical structures that hosted Israeli leaders and even Eleanor Roosevelt. (Haaretz)

Commentary/Analysis:

Co-opting Nobel winner as 'Israeli' won't hide truth about academia (Or Kashti, Haaretz) Arieh Warshel left country 40-plus years ago, like so many academics have since.
A temporary glitch in the system (Prof. Abraham Ben-Zvi, Israel Hayom) Historically, spats between the White House and Congress were about specific policy differences, not general doctrines and world views.
The question of recognition of the Jewish state - a bargaining chip (Amnon Lord, Maariv/NRG Hebrew) Many claim that the Jewishness of Israel is an internal issue. Why should we demand it of them? But the requirement is a test stone for Palestinian independence...The reason Netanyahu emphasizes this point is twofold: in a historical-strategic sense and as a bargaining chip. The strategic-historical reason, which it seems that most of our leaders do not understand, is related to the continued campaign of the other side, led by the PLO and Hamas. The one who formulated the position that Israel should take about recognizing Israel as a Jewish state was the late Gen. Yehoshafat Harkabi who has been dead more than 40 years...The requirement is a test stone over the degree of independence of the Palestinians. The fact that they do not give such recognition indicates among other things that they depend on the backing of the rest of the Arab world. Therefore, the question of recognition turns into a bargaining chip. If you can not give it, then you can not prepare for a permanent settlement, and we are going to an interim agreement - which is against the will of the Palestinians...
When it comes to Iran, Israel is walking a fine line in Washington (Amos Harel, Haaretz) Lobbying Congress for tougher sanctions against Iran risks incurring Obama Administration's wrath.
New EU settlements guidelines already biting (Anders Persson, Maan) Even before they are set to begin, the new EU guidelines against the Israeli settlements on the West Bank are a potential game-changer in the over-100-year conflict in the Middle East. In my own and other's research, it is increasingly clear that the EU is emerging as a normative and legitimizing power in international affairs.
Sissi's October War (Dr. Reuven Berko, Israel Hayom) This year, following the dismal interim results of the Arab Spring, the October victory celebrations were accompanied by a sense of falling astray.
 

Interviews: 

'Judaizing Jerusalem': The man behind the plan
Has he crossed the line? After carpeting Israel's capital with a divisive election campaign that promises a no-holds approach to East Jerusalem expansion, Aryeh King sits down to explain his views. (Interviewed by Ilene Prusher in Haaretz)
 
 

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