News Nosh 9.1.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday September 1, 2017
 
Quote of the day:
“Try not to come with prejudices. Prejudices are boring.”

—President of Israel Reuven Rivlin in an Op-Ed in Yedioth to Israeli children on their first day of school.


You Must Be Kidding: 
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu claimed on Facebook that it’s normal for a politician to speak 234 times in three years with the editor-in-chief of a major newspaper.
Former prime minister Ehud Barak responded on Twitter:
"Summary of conversations [with newspaper publishers and editors] from 20 years in politics in all positions: [Haaretz publisher] Amos Schocken - 1. [Yedioth publisher] Noni Moses - 3. With [Israel Hayom editor-in-chief] Amos Regev - 3, usually [to talk] about Mahler, [We are] two fans.”

Front Page:
Haaretz
  • When you’re big you’ll be tinsmiths and secretaries: half of the youth from the periphery are in vocational education - Opening of school year
  • Rise in number of ultra-Orthodox educational institutions that joined the state school system and teach core classes
  • Netanyahu in south Tel-Aviv: “We will return the area to the citizens”
  • The Prime Minister’s tour (of south Tel-Aviv) defies the court // Yossi Verter
  • Netanyahu: I spoke weekly with the editor-in-chief of ‘Israel Hayom’ newspaper
  • High Court rejected appeal to recognize same-sex marriages
  • 20 years since the rebellion at Prison 6, IDF admits it jails too many
  • Beautiful mayor in France wants to rule the whole country // Dov Alfon
  • FDA: MDMA is a breakthrough treatment for post-trauma
  • Invision 09 went from jail to the front of Israeli hip-hop
  • The societal price that the big exits are costing the kibbutzes
  • Books by Bar-Zohar and Mashal about the Shin Bet are advertising journals
  • Visiting the dead, visiting the living and other memories from the Id al-Adha (Muslim holiday) // Tawfiq Da’adlah
Yedioth Ahronoth
  • Israel goes up a class - School year off to start
  • Be mensches // President Reuven Rivlin
  • Go know // Meir Shalev
  • Netanyahu: 234 discussions with editor-in-chief of ‘Israel Hayom’ over three years
  • It’s all in the head - Hanoch Daum and psychologist Ariel Hartman try to unravel the man who is Netanyahu
  • Look them in the eyes: Leaders of the battle for handicapped rights in a fighting interview
Maariv Weekend (Hebrew links only)
  • The redeeming bell (of the first day of school)
  • The keys to our future // President Reuven Rivlin
  • Thanks to the teachers // Education Minister Naftali Bennet
  • “We will return south Tel-Aviv to Israelis” - Prime Minister visited neighborhoods in south of city in attempt to calm the [Jewish] residents
  • Following the appeal: Netanyahu revealed the extent of his talks with the editor-in-chief of ‘Israel Hayom’
  • Trump’s show of force
  • “There is no agreement on Iranian presence on the border” - Security source denies reports that Russia and Iran approved for Iran to advance forces to 8 km from Golan Heights
  • The man in the submarine // Ben Caspit
  • The Exceptions Committee // Kalman Libeskind writes that it is doubtful that demonstrations like those allowed outside Attorney General’s home in Petah Tikva, were ever allowed to any group and that there needs to be a uniform standard
  • According to foreign reports: Back to the operation that prevented Assad from achieving nuclear capability // Yossi Melman
  • Lavi project - 30 years since the decision to cancel “the best fighter jet in the world”: Did the State of Israel lose a blue-and-white stealth plane?
Israel Hayom
  • Starting from Alef
  • The most important lesson: Respect for the other
  • Promote tolerance and patience // Yuval Halavia
  • The happiness is his, the happiness is ours // Ariel Shmidberg
  • Construction violations of the man who “fights corruption”
  • Arms factories Iran is building in Lebanon will operate in the foreseeable future
  • “We will return area to Israelis” - Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited neighborhoods in south Tel-Aviv
  • In the name of the brother - Brother of (fallen and captive soldier) Hadar Goldin - We are being shaken between despair, anger and hope
  • Being educated - Education Minister Naftali Bennet opens the new year and closes accounts with his critics
  • Night guard against ISIS: We joined an ambush in an enclave in the Golan Heights // Yoav Limor and Ziv Koren
  • The pilots who became school principals


News Summary:
The top stories in the Friday Hebrew newspapers were the opening today of the school year with 2.2 million pupils, the frequency of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s conversations with the owner and the editor-in-chief of ‘Israel Hayom’ newspaper, which he was forced to divulge under court order, and Netanyahu’s statement that “South Tel-Aviv will be returned to its residents,” said only days after the High Court prohibited forced deportation of infiltrators and asylum seekers and limited their imprisonment.

*In a Facebook post, Netanyahu revealed that over three years, he spoke 40 times a year to Sheldon Adelson, the right-wing Jewish-American tycoon who supports him and owns the pro-Netanyahu ‘Israel Hayom’ daily, and a total of 234 times with the newspaper’s then-editor-in-chief, Amos Regev. Netanyahu was ordered by court to reveal his conversations at the request of muckraking journalist Raviv Drucker, who argued in his freedom of information request that “the information will make it possible to determine a possible connection between the prime minister’s conversations with Adelson and Regev and the coverage in Israel Hayom, and whether the prime minister essentially determined the newspaper’s content during the period in question,” wrote Haaretz. Former prime minister Ehud Barak posted in response that he rarely ever spoke with editors in publishers in all his years as a politician. (Maariv)

Interesting first day of school reports:
Some IDF soldiers were left wondering why a combat unit should be assigned the mission of greeting school children in the Arava region in the south on their first day of school.
Several schools planned to strike over complaints including lax security measures, disruptive construction work, canceled school transportation and inadequate infrastructure.
This year, 14% more students in East Jerusalem will study the Israeli matriculation program. Some parents associations from East Jerusalem have protested the pressure on schools from Israel to use the Israeli curriculum, claiming it is an attempt to erase the Palestinian identity of the students.
More ultra-Orthodox in Israel are sending children to learn full core curriculum, which include math and English.
 
Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.