APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday, December 15, 2017
Quote of the day:
"Why? Why are you beating him on the head? Do you want me to beat you on the head?"
--Palestinian woman yells in Hebrew to Israeli soldier in Hebron after he struck a 15-year-old youth on the head with his weapon, as seen in a chilling video clip filmed by B'tselem that went viral.
--Palestinian woman yells in Hebrew to Israeli soldier in Hebron after he struck a 15-year-old youth on the head with his weapon, as seen in a chilling video clip filmed by B'tselem that went viral.
Front Page:
Haaretz
- Teva Pharmaceuticals is firing 1,700 employees in Israel; Five factories will be closed and sold
- Teva employees discovered the price of work in an American corporation // Guy Rolnik
- The poisonous pill: The paranoia and megalomania that brought down Teva // Sami Peretz
- The company that gave out to its board of directors 60,000 shekels per meeting // Hagai Amit
- From both sides of the road there were bodies. Some died with a smile on their faces. Others held a weapon in one hand and the Quran in the other” - Testimony of an Israeli, who fought among ISIS - and returned
- The White House: The peace initiative is not stuck, but due to Trump’s declaration there may be a cooling-off period
- High Court ruled that state is not allowed to hold corpses of terrorists
- Eight women testified that a senior person at Sheba Hospital sexually harassed them, but the management left him responsible for the medical interns
- If the Palestinians want to learn how to oppose the occupation efficiently, they should travel to New Zealand // Gideon Levy in New Zealand
- Buying houses and renewing the passport: Jews originally from Iraq plan to return to their homeland
- Aside from the tendency to die, what is needed to receive the Israel Prize? // Hilo Glazer
Yedioth Ahronoth
- 1,750 fired - Teva Pharmaceuticals Blow
- “We will fight with all our power” - Labor union heads at Teva factories slam the management
- The shame of the directors // Sever Plocker
- Storm over the terrorists’ corpses - High Court ruled: “State may not hold bodies for negotiation purposes, if it doesn’t formulate a legal arrangement”
- (Coalition leader) Bitan’s “banker” is on the way to becoming a state witness
- End of course atmosphere // Sima Kadmon
- Today: Netanyahu will be questioned for the seventh time
- Women of the Mossad - The secret heroes of the State of Israel are revealed
- Seinfeld, the new chapter - a special interview on everything
Maariv Weekend (Hebrew links only)
- 1,700 employees going home - Teva disaster
- Sunday: General protest strike (across the country by Histadrut national labor union)
- The ship is sinking // Yehuda Sharoni
- Teva’s axe // Eli Tzipori
- Likely: (President) Rivlin will pardon (the ‘Shooting Soldier from Hebron,’’ Elor) Azaria on Independence Day
- (Attorney General) Mendelblit chastised his deputy (Dina Zilber): Stop criticizing politicians // Kalman Libeskind
- High Court: State cannot hold terrorists’ corpses
- Divorce battle ended in tragedy - Israeli father in Texas shot to death his 9-year-old daughter and himself
- Police convinced: (Coalition leader) Bitan’s banker invested in international businesses of Jarushi
- Today: Prime Minister expected to be questioned for the seventh time
- Exclusive: George Schultz, former US Secretary of State, is against the two-state solution
- Me too: Julia Levy-Boken reveals the sexual harassment in the film industry
- The Levin storm - The full interview with Maj. Gen. (res.) Amiram Levin, the hardline security man of (Labor party chief) Avi Gabbay, who made the political establishment jump this week when he said, “The next time we fight the Palestinians, they won’t remain here”
Israel Hayom
- Teva’s collapse: 1,750 employees will be sent home; Sunday: General strike
- Exclusive: The Chief Justice’s diary: The schedule of the justices’ meetings was exposed
- “Release of corpses of terrorists - tailwind for terror”
- Storm following ‘Israel Hayom’s’ publication about the Um al-Hiran affair: Calls for dismissing the Police Commissioner
- Michal Ritman, wife of Roni Ritman, head of Police’s Lahav 433 Anti-Fraud Unit, shared Facebook posts against Netanyahu
- From Antiochus to the Ma’apilim Ship: Hannukah activities about heritage
- Tonight: 4th Hannukah candle
- Very harassed - Stories of men who were sexually harassed at workplaces by women - and why they didn’t complain
- 15 years without them - Ora Anter returns to the attack in Keny, where she lost her two sons
- A mother’s pride - Hagit Ron-Rabinovitch on the moving ceremony in which her autistic son Eli was sworn in to the army
- The enormous dismissals at Teva Pharmaceuticals showed: The market is looking for a new “Teva,” thinner and more efficient // Eran Bar-Tal
News Summary:
Teva Pharmaceutical Company fired 1,700 employees and the National Labor Union is planning a general strike for Sunday in solidarity, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that the state cannot hold the corpses of Palestinian assailants for negotiating a prisoner exchange (Israel is holding nine), infuriating the government and the families of captive IDF soldiers and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is being questioned today in cases of alleged corruption for the seventh time, while Yedioth reported that the ‘banker’ of coalition leader MK David Bitan, Netanyahu’s close ally, will likely become a state witness against Bitan - making top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers.
DIPLOMACY:
The White House said that its Mideast peace initiative may face a ‘temporary cooling off,' period due to the unilateral US declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, but that it’s still moving forward. That said, US Vice President Mike Pence's visit to Israel was delayed by two days, some believe due to the tensions over the declaration. Pence will arrive Wednesday evening and only visit with Israeli officials after Palestinian officials said they refuse to meet with. Haaretz+ noted that “despite the fact that Pence is a devout Christian and his visit will take place a few days before Christmas, a visit to a church is not part of the trip's itinerary and church heads in Jerusalem did not receive any request to host Pence in one of the churches.” The city of Bethlehem already announced Pence is unwelcome.
SECURITY:
The 24 rockets fired at Israel since the Trump Declaration (11 of them did not fall inside Israel), were fired by small Salafi organizations that want to embarrass Hamas and bring about an escalation, Israeli security officials told reporters. The unnamed security officials said that Hamas is not interested in a war with Israel, but it is readying itself in case one breaks out over a misunderstanding.
CORRUPTION CASES:
Yedioth’s political commentator Sima Kadmon writes that the sense is that the investigations into alleged corruption by the Prime Minister are coming to an end and the police will recommend indicting Netanyahu. Interestingly, Israel Hayom, which does not normally defend the Arab’s position in a dispute with Israeli security forces, reported yesterday that the Police was negligent. Yesterday Israeli Hayom reported that a day after the Um al-Hiran incident, in which police had opened fire on Yaqoub Abu al-Qiyan, 50, a Bedouin Israeli citizen driving a car at night during a pre-dawn raid on his village and the car then hit and killed a policeman, the Shin Bet had told the Police that the Bedouin man was not a terrorist and the killing of the policeman was an accident, despite the police claims otherwise, but that the police had ignored the assessment and continued to insist that the Bedouin man was a terrorist with ISIS ties. The surprising report by Israel Hayom appeared to make more sense today, when the paper reported that following yesterday's report there were calls for Police Chief Roni Alsheikh to resign. Netanyahu’s allies have been actively opposing Alsheikh due to his investigations against Netanyahu. The report in Israel Hayom appears to be along the same line.
Teva Pharmaceutical Company fired 1,700 employees and the National Labor Union is planning a general strike for Sunday in solidarity, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that the state cannot hold the corpses of Palestinian assailants for negotiating a prisoner exchange (Israel is holding nine), infuriating the government and the families of captive IDF soldiers and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is being questioned today in cases of alleged corruption for the seventh time, while Yedioth reported that the ‘banker’ of coalition leader MK David Bitan, Netanyahu’s close ally, will likely become a state witness against Bitan - making top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers.
DIPLOMACY:
The White House said that its Mideast peace initiative may face a ‘temporary cooling off,' period due to the unilateral US declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, but that it’s still moving forward. That said, US Vice President Mike Pence's visit to Israel was delayed by two days, some believe due to the tensions over the declaration. Pence will arrive Wednesday evening and only visit with Israeli officials after Palestinian officials said they refuse to meet with. Haaretz+ noted that “despite the fact that Pence is a devout Christian and his visit will take place a few days before Christmas, a visit to a church is not part of the trip's itinerary and church heads in Jerusalem did not receive any request to host Pence in one of the churches.” The city of Bethlehem already announced Pence is unwelcome.
SECURITY:
The 24 rockets fired at Israel since the Trump Declaration (11 of them did not fall inside Israel), were fired by small Salafi organizations that want to embarrass Hamas and bring about an escalation, Israeli security officials told reporters. The unnamed security officials said that Hamas is not interested in a war with Israel, but it is readying itself in case one breaks out over a misunderstanding.
CORRUPTION CASES:
Yedioth’s political commentator Sima Kadmon writes that the sense is that the investigations into alleged corruption by the Prime Minister are coming to an end and the police will recommend indicting Netanyahu. Interestingly, Israel Hayom, which does not normally defend the Arab’s position in a dispute with Israeli security forces, reported yesterday that the Police was negligent. Yesterday Israeli Hayom reported that a day after the Um al-Hiran incident, in which police had opened fire on Yaqoub Abu al-Qiyan, 50, a Bedouin Israeli citizen driving a car at night during a pre-dawn raid on his village and the car then hit and killed a policeman, the Shin Bet had told the Police that the Bedouin man was not a terrorist and the killing of the policeman was an accident, despite the police claims otherwise, but that the police had ignored the assessment and continued to insist that the Bedouin man was a terrorist with ISIS ties. The surprising report by Israel Hayom appeared to make more sense today, when the paper reported that following yesterday's report there were calls for Police Chief Roni Alsheikh to resign. Netanyahu’s allies have been actively opposing Alsheikh due to his investigations against Netanyahu. The report in Israel Hayom appears to be along the same line.
Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.