Quote of the day:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

Israel Hayom

News Summary:
Opposition members of Knesset and municipality leaders across the country made efforts to thwart two controversial bills making top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers. Also in the news, the latest on the ‘Trump effect’,’ following his unilateral declaration to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Monday night, opposition lawmakers began a marathon debate to filibuster the passing of the ‘Recommendations Bill,’ also known as the ‘Bibi Bill,’ which would shield officials under probes by preventing the police from releasing recommendations for indictment at the end of its investigations. The filibuster could last up to 45 hours.

Meanwhile, local authorities in a number of cities and towns are racing to pass bylaws that would permit businesses to remain open on Shabbat, ahead of the passing by the ruling coalition of a law forbidding operations on weekends. The bill is highly unpopular, but the coalition promised to pass the bill in order to keep the ultra-Orthodox party members in the coalition and prevent the government from falling.

Following Trump’s example and after talking with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales announced he would move his country’s embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, and Yedioth reported that Honduras and Paraguay are expected to join the embassy move to Jerusalem. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said that Israel was in talks with more than 10 other countries to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Interestingly, Israel Hayom has reported that Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were displeased with the way the Palestinian Authority was conducting its reaction to the Trump declaration, which has put the US-friendly Arab states at odds with Trump, and they have joined together to change it.  The Arab League announced the creation of a new committee, comprised of the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Saudia Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, which would devise a new policy on Jerusalem and which one source said “effectively puts the Arab League in charge of the policy on Jerusalem, taking it away from the Palestinians.”
 

Quick Hits:

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Features:

What Brings a Group of Bollywood Filmmakers to Israel?
After a successful Indian version of a popular local series, Israel is keen to collaborate with Bollywood. Could the world’s most prolific film industry be on its way to the Holy Land? (Itay Stern, Haaretz+)
13 years after his death, Arafat’s memory remains purely symbolic
Although it may seem as if the former Palestinian leader is still the unshakable symbol of Fatah, the movement has gone to great lengths since his death to distance itself from his associates and from his legacy of pursuing peace talks with Israel while supporting terrorism. (Elior Levy, Yedioth/Ynet)
Older Than the Pyramids and as Mysterious as Stonehenge: The Unexplained Stone Circle in Israel's Golan Heights
The stone circle at Rujm el-Hiri remains one of the most neglected archaeological finds in Israel. Experts are calling for it to be turned into a national park – even though it isn’t connected to the area’s Jewish past. (Moshe Gilad, Haaretz+)

Commentary/Analysis:
*The Israeli 'Left' Is Gaslighting U.S. Jews Into Support for Trump on Jerusalem(Debra Shushan, Haaretz) American Jews shouldn't take their cue from an Israeli left which is veering rightwards and indoctrinated by the false slogan of an 'eternal and undivided Jerusalem'. Trump's move sabotaged peace, and we U.S. Jews must push back against it.
**Europe's failure to support Trump's declaration is Holocaust denial in new garb (Michael Kleiner, Maariv) The UN vote against the American recognition of Jerusalem proves that Europe is not really enlightened, and that the ideological platform that gave rise to Nazism has not completely been uprooted.
The Palestinians Just Gave Netanyahu What He Always Wanted for Christmas(Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz+) If there is one goal the Israeli premier has devoted his entire career to, it is trying to sever ties between the Americans and the Palestinians – and Abbas has handed it to him wrapped with a bow.
Time is working in our favor: I hope that the American deal is buried forever (Prof. Arieh Eldad, Maariv) After 70 years they recognized Jerusalem. Perhaps in another 70 years they will also recognize East Jerusalem as a sovereign part of Israel, if only we do not scare ourselves…
The U.S. Should Not Be a Neutral Peace Mediator (Moshe Arens, Haaretz+) Abbas says Trump's America cannot be a neutral mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, and he is right.
What happens at the UN GA stays at the UN GA (Yoav Fromer, Yedioth/Ynet) Netanyahu and Trump apparently fail to understand that the United Nations General Assembly is all about pretend diplomacy; as long as the General Assembly focuses on words against Israel, the Security Council will likely avoid taking real action against Israel.
Why the 'Donald Trump of Guatemala' Will Move His Country’s Embassy to Jerusalem (Allison Kaplan Sommer, Haaretz) Jimmy Morales has gone from TV comedian to convention-busting president – but he's deadly serious when it comes to Israel.
Bennett's decision against Association for Civil Rights Israel is an anti-educational act (Attorney Eli Bachar, Maariv) The Education Minister's decided to cancel a joint conference on the subject of workers’ rights, organized by the Association for Civil Rights Israel (ACRI). The media reported that the background to the decision was that ACRI was "working to defend terrorists who murdered Israelis." It is hard to find a more refined expression of the lunar eclipse in which we live, than the gross trampling of basic values by the education minister. It appears that the distorted description of ACRI's activities, as reflected in the Minister's statement, appears to be the basis for the scandalous decision. This was based on a misperception of the role of human rights organizations in our democratic regime, which needs to offer an alternative approach to a position based on security considerations.
If I Was Palestinian, Would the Knife-wielding Settler Who Attacked Me Have Faced Justice? (Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Haaretz+) The toxic environment of radical Israeli settlements is incubating violence, while Israel’s security forces has a miserable record of bringing those who attack Palestinians to justice.
This Christmas, Santa Is Barred From Gaza for 'Security Reasons' (Muhammad Shehada, Haaretz) Some of the Mideast's most embattled Christians have little to celebrate. After 11 years of blockade, only 1000 Christians are left in Gaza, and the call to join relatives in exile grows stronger every year.
Why Should 'We' Take Care of 'Your' Handicapped? (Samah Salaime, Haaretz+) After a poem I wrote about the murder of the Palestinian double amputee went viral, I wondered about the ranking of human beings, from the unnecessary to the chosen.
If Netanyahu can remain in office, why can’t Bitan? (Yuval Karni, Yedioth/Ynet) If the prime minister has no problem running the state’s affairs under investigations and even under recommendations for an indictment, why can’t his coalition chairman, who is up to his neck in his own legal troubles, keep his position?
How Donald Trump Lost the 'War on Christmas' (Allison Kaplan Sommer, Haaretz) During his presidential election campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to Make Christmas Merry Again. But the reality has proved different to all his Yuletide rhetoric.
The Israel-U.S.-Saudi alliance will likely end in disaster (Eitay Mack, +972mag) By supporting the Saudi kingdom with military aid and intelligence cooperation, while ignoring the regime’s human rights abuses and support for terror organizations, Israel and the U.S. risk repeating the Cold War era’s worst mistakes.
Saudi Arabia's Jew-friendly Face Is Just a Mirage (Jonathan S. Tobin, Haaretz) After all the talk of a geopolitical love affair, when Riyadh bans the entry of Israeli chess players, it's time to sober up: the Saudis aren't the saviors of Mideast peace - and they'll never normalize relations with the Jewish state.
The guillotine cannot replace the ballot (MK Yuli Edelstein, Israel Hayom) The person who brandished the mock guillotine in Tel Aviv over the weekend is not fed up with the right-wing government – he is fed up with democracy and sick and tired of waiting for elections.
Inventing Incitement (Monday Haaretz Editorial) The cardboard guillotine at anti-corruption protests are not the same thing as the incitement that led to Rabin's assassination, no matter how hard the right tries to show the dangers of 'both sides.’
Not everything is incitement (Shlomo Puterkovsky, Yedioth/Ynet) Pretentious protest artists, who harm their own side much more than they harm the other side, exist both on the Right and on the Left; the problem is we also have people in both camps who keep crying out ‘incitement’ over every bit of nonsense, as if we have lost our sense of proportion.
Woe to such a pacifist: A guillotine for heads of politicians is a danger to democracy(Meir Uziel, Maariv) I saw hundreds of pictures of cigar cutters, none of which looked like this, so the argument that at the demonstration one was carrying such a device is a claim that was invented at the last minute.
Defending Israeli Democracy Is More Urgent Right Now Than Fighting the Occupation (Chemi Shalev, Haaretz+) Gideon Levy lambasts right wing protests against Netanyahu’s corruption when he should be embracing them.
Right-wing anti-corruption protest is just the tip of the iceberg (Ben-Dror Yemini, Yedioth/Ynet) Anyone paying attention to the discourse developing in the Right in general, and in Likud in particular, knows that the frustration there is on the rise; the things being said about Netanyahu, and not just behind closed doors, are far from expressions of unconditional support.
The Shin Bet's Former Chief Is Worried (Amira Hass, Haaretz+) Avi Dichter says he finds it worrisome that 90% of Palestinians object to disarming the military organizations in Gaza. But what's more worrisome is that Israel's being portrayed as the party being targeted by violence.
BDS, unfortunately, is still alive and kicking (Einav Schiff, Yedioth/Ynet) The international artists who flooded Israel this past summer gave us the feeling that the boycott movement had been defeated; Lorde’s cancellation indicates it was just an illusion: In the touring industry, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears to be a relevant issue.
Israel's Interior Ministry Has Failed at Citizenship (Haaretz Editorial) Israelis who sought to acquire legal status for their foreign spouses have found their own citizenship called into question. The state has apparently forgotten its job - to serve the public.
Secular Coercion Under the Guise of Liberalism (Israel Cohen, Haaretz+) This patronizing attitude by secular people, reflected in the assumption that women’s organizations and female MKs know better than any average ultra-Orthodox woman what’s good for her, is both arrogant and insulting.
What the Arab Spring failed to do (Prof. Eyal Zisser, Israel Hayom) Seven years after the first protests, what should have been the Arab world's finest hour has become another nail in the coffin of Arabism.
A Daring Assassination Attempt Shows ISIS in Sinai Has the Ultimate Weapon: Intel(Amos Harel, Haaretz+) An air force helicopter was blown to pieces in a by-the-book military operation that could have seen two senior ministers killed. This was the latest in a string of attacks that could force Egypt – and Israel – to respond.