News Nosh 10.20.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday October 20, 2017
 
You Must Be Kidding: 
At the last minute, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat cancelled a meeting between senior city officials, police officers and representatives of the Isawiyah neighborhood parents committee in E. Jerusalem, which was meant to end a school strike declared by the parents, during which the neighborhood’s 4,300 pupils have been out of class. According to the parents, Border Police forces have been entering the neighborhood daily at about the time the children are let out of school and deliberately positioning themselves near the schools to provoke disturbances.

Front Page:
Haaretz
Yedioth Ahronoth
  • #MeToo:
  • You freeze on the spot // TV anchorwoman Lucy Aharish in Op-Ed on sexual harassment experience
  • And then near the end, it came // Singer Dana International in Op-Ed how TV personality humiliated her in live interview
  • Welcome to our world // Karina Shotland, editor of ‘Women’ magazine
  • #MeToo didn’t sexually harass // Raanan Shaked, editor of 'Blazer' men’s magazine
  • “Ultra-Orthodox day of rage”: 120 demonstrators were arrested
  • Sinking forward - Storm following Yedioth investigation on the ‘Submarines Affair’: Germany demanding to know what exactly happened in meeting between Ganor, the agent, Shimron, the lawyer and the German ambassador to Israel
  • In the crosshairs (photo of Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh) // Nahum Barnea
  • Half the Labor (caricature of new Labor party chief Avi Gabbay) // Sima Kadmon
Maariv Weekend (Hebrew links only)
Israel Hayom
  • Elor Azaria petitioned the President: “I request some mercy”
  • After the storm: time for a pardon // Dror Eydar
  • Greenblatt: The Palestinian government must recognize Israel
  • Head of Police Unit Investigating Police vs. Police Commissioner: “Letting off easy the police who transgressed”
  • Day of Rage of the ultra-Orthodox
  • Iran continues to provoke the US: “Despite the pressure - we will hasten the development of (ballistic) missile program”
  • Following ‘Israel Hayom’ expose: Demand that Police stop employing Horev as Police Commissioner Alsheikh’s advisor
  • In the end I’ll win: Moshe Feiglin [far-right-wing of Likud] is preparing for elections and is convinced that he will compete against Yair Lapid
  • The northern front: Even if Israel and Syria aren’t interested in a conflict - Iran could draw them into one // Yoav Limor

 
News Summary:
The ultra-Orthodox demonstrated en masse against becoming soldiers, Hamas said it would not give up its arms, despite a US demand, and the ‘Shooting Soldier from Hebron,’ Elor Azaria, said he used his weapon by ‘mistake’ and asked the President for a pardon - making top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers.

Also in the news, the IDF attacked a Syrian army post in retaliation for an errant rocket, only a day after Iran's chief of staff warned against Israeli attacks in Syria and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the Jordan Valley, located in the West Bank, would always remain a part of Israel.

Political commentators wrote about Netanyahu’s war against the police, which was investigating him for alleged corruption, about the right-wing declarations of the new Labor party chief, Avi Gabbay and about the Israeli cabinet’s cold shoulder declaration toward the Palestinian Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement.

Yedioth’s Sima Kadmon wrote that "If it were up to Netanyahu, the…agreement would pass under the Israeli radar with a low profile. The soft reaction of “We will follow and examine” was certainly enough for Netanyahu’s energies, which are directed now mainly at the (corruption) investigations.  But Netanyahu didn’t take into account that there is someone in the government who doesn’t intend to let it pass: Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi), together with Minister Zeev Elkin from Likud. The two marked for themselves as a target to prevent the avoiding of the previous cabinet from 2014. Then, after Operation Protective Edge, Abu Mazen reached a reconciliation agreement with Hamas and established a technocratic government without Hamas people, in order not to harm the transfer of the Americans’ money to the Palestinian Authority. Israel could have then said that this wasn’t a unity government with Hamas and that it was possible to continue with the diplomatic process. But it didn’t do that…The decision that was reached at the time was to stop contacts if they don’t accept the MidEast Quartet conditions. Netanyahu, it needs to be said, was much more aggressive than he was this week. He called the Palestinian Authority a terror government and went on an international campaign against it. All that is very far from the statement that he released before the cabinet meeting this week, which was very moderate. But then Bennett opened a hasbara campaign, a real media blitz, demanding to adopt and certify the decision from 2014, which determines that the Israeli government won’t negotiate with the Palestinian government, which is leaning on Hamas. Bennett, as always, succeeded in lock Netanyahu, who was still licking his wounds from the metal detector affair on the Temple Mount.”
 
 
Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.