News Nosh 12.1.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
December 1, 2017
 
Number of the day:
26.
--Percentage of Israelis who believe that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is suitable to be Prime Minister. Down from 36% three weeks ago.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
Jewish-Arab City of Haifa Refuses to Add Arabic Signage to Stadium Facade
The municipality says it won't add a sign in Arabic to the facade of the Sammy Ofer Stadium because of an 'agreement with the donor.'

Front Page:
Haaretz
  • Cases and darkness [Photo of Netanyahu]
  • Everyone for one // Yossi Verter
  • Dragging feet // Gidi Weitz
  • Changing the rule won’t help: ZIonist Camp and Yesh Atid parties are trapped in a distorted world concepts // Igal Eilam
  • Suspicion of (terror) attack in Arad: 20-year-old stabbed to death; search for stabber
  • In Israel live thousands of children of (mentally) handicapped parents that no one knows
  • Dov Navon speaks about cheating, fears and harassment: “Maybe I’m not a man”
  • After 67 years of journalism and 12 prime ministers, Yoel Marcus sums up
  • Education Minister insists that religious people don’t have a monopoly on the Jewish consciousness
  • A barrage of mortars fired towards soldiers near Gaza; IDF attacked Hamas and (Palestinian Islamic) Jihad targets in the Strip
  • A group of settlers were attacked by Palestinians in the West Bank, one of them shot to death a Palestinian. Relative of the killed: He is a 48-year-old farmer and wasn’t involved in the incident
  • The instrument used against Palestinians was directed towards ultra-Orthodox
  • Nitzanim won’t fall again: Return to the scene of the battle of 1948
  • The Nazi hunter won’t give up, until the last of the most junior people
Yedioth Ahronoth
  • (Tycoon) Milchan in questioning: “It wasn’t exactly gifts, it was a demand. Gifts are not demanded, it disgusted me”; (Tycoon) Packer confirmed Milchan’s version: “The gifts were not an act of friends, but rather a demand. They asked, so I gave”
  • Banana monarchy // Nahum Barnea
  • State in danger // (Former High Court chief justice) Dorit Beinish
  • Saving Bibi // Sima Kadmon
  • 19-year-old murdered and his weapon was taken - Assessment: (Terror) attack in Arad
  • Day of fire in south: Month after (Israeli) explosion of terror tunnel: Islamic Jihad launched salvo of mortars toward an Israeli (military) outpost
  • Careful: Fine for glancing - New guideline rules that glancing aside while driving will cost you 500 shekels
  • Away game - Uri Kukia is the first active basketball player who declared he was gay - A proud interview
  • Investigation: What is a seduction girl doing in the IDF Disabled Veterans Organization?
Maariv Weekend (Hebrew links only)
Israel Hayom
  • Commander (of South) after the mortars: “We hit important targets”
  • Suspicion of attack in Arad: 20-year-old soldier was stabbed to death
  • Samaria: Bar Mitzvah hike almost turned into a lynch
  • Leitzman: “I wish I could close the country on Shabbat” - Special interview
  • The fine is on the way: Driving? Don’t take your eyes off the road
  • Interest in Japan: Considering acquiring Isracard or Leumi Card
  • Officer, fix your appearance: IDF making more severe dress guidelines for career soldiers
  • Bitcoin and us: How the currency changed the life of Israelis
  • Herodium, the longest zip-wire in the country and boutique wineries: Have you already visited Gush Etzion [settlement bloc in the West Bank - OH]
  • If there were paradise - the special place that gives shelter to dozens of ultra-Orthodox girls who escaped from their families
  • Zouheir in the dark - MK Zouheir Bahloul is finding it hard to find a place in the changing political reality
  • Didi Harari on the Mizrachi (music) genre and on his path in radio
  • 3 of the women who filed complaints against Rabbi Ezra Sheinberg, who was convicted of sex crimes, speak

 
News Summary:
The two main stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers were given very Israeli slants. A ’19-year-old was stabbed to death in the city of Arad in a suspected terror attack’ and a ‘shooting took place during a bar-mitzvah hike’ or ‘children almost lynched during hike’ read most of the headlines. The 19-year-old was a soldier and the search was on for his killer, who stole his weapon. On the bar-mitzvah hike, a settler [from the extremist settlement of Yitzhar, according to Maariv] shot dead a Palestinian farmer who was not involved in the incident that took place between settler hikers on the lands of the village of Qusra in the West Bank. The settlers’ version that was prominently played out was that they were being stoned by villagers and opened fire in self-defense. The Palestinian version, that a clash between villagers and settler youth broke out only after the settler shot dead dead the farmer, 47, was buried in the text, if reported on at all. Also buried in the article was the fact that the settlers’ trip was made without coordination with the army, which would have required a military escort, and that 'hilltop youth' [violent settler youth - OH] raided a nearby Palestinian village later in the day throwing rocks at villagers - the very act that the settlers accused the Palestinians of doing and for which one opened fire, killing the Palestinian farmer.

Also making headlines, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) launched a salvo of mortars at an Israeli military outpost near the Gaza Strip border and while the Israeli security establishment assessment was that this was in retaliation for the deaths of 12 Palestinians killed when Israel blew up a PIJ tunnel, PIJ said the rockets were a response to the “terror by settlers armed by the occupation government” and who “executed the farmer, Mahmoud Odeh, while he was toiling his land,” Maariv reported. Yedioth didn’t even bother to give PIJ’s statement for its salvo. The papers reported that the IDF responded by hitting “important targets” - of Hamas, which the IDF hold responsible for any aggression against Israel coming out of the Gaza Strip.

The investigations into alleged corruption by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the laws being pushed to protect him were also prominent in today's Hebrew newspapers. Yedioth led with incriminating statements against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by the Jewish tycoons who provided him with ‘gifts,’ and shared an interview with former High Court chief justice Dorit Beinish, who expressed concern about the continued existence of Israel’s democracy and said that certain legislative initiatives [e.g. the ‘Recommendations Law’], “were meant to solve personal problems instead of reflecting the public interest.” Maariv noted that the ‘Recommendations Law,’ which Netanyahu-loyal Likud MKs are trying to quickly push through Knesset readings, has adversely affected Netanyahu and the Likud party: A poll found that only 26% of Israelis believe Netanyahu is suitable to be Prime Minister, compared to 36% on the 9th of November. Moreover, support for Likud dropped from 30 to 25 mandates with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid and the Zionist Camp benefitting what Likud lost.

Also in the news, US President Donald Trump was expected to again delay the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem, but he was expected to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

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