APN's daily news review from Israel

Tuesday January 2, 2018
 

Quote of the day:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

Israel Hayom

News Summary:
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wished success to Iranian protesters via a YouTube video and rejected accusations that Israel was behind the expanding anti-government protests in Iran, the coalition postponed by a week the Knesset vote over the controversial Supermarkets Law because two lawmakers of the coalition were missing, and Ahed Tamimi, the blonde Palestinian teenager filmed slapping and pushing a soldier off her property, was charged with assault along with her mother, making top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers. Also, in the news, a day after the Likud Central Committee voted in favor of annexing West Bank settlements, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of intending to create an apartheid regime with US backing and promised to revisit signed agreements.
 

Quick Hits:

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Features:
Marking territory: The women behind the initiative to annex Judea and Samaria
Yehudit Katzover and Nadia Matar have already become accustomed to being perceived among the right-wing as "hallucinatory,” but at the vote (over annexation of West Bank settlements) at the Likud Central Committee they saw their years of efforts bearing fruit. “It was a breakthrough,” they admit. (Karni Eldad, Maariv's Magazine supplement, cover)
Neighbors ‘Death to Muslims,’ civil war Beirut style
New film ‘The Insult,’ banned in Ramallah, rips open old wounds from the Lebanese Civil War. (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+)
Letters to the Editor: Discrimination, Lorde and Ahed Tamimi (Haaretz)
 
Commentary/Analysis:
Endless Detention (Haaretz Editorial) Israeli jurists and academics should speak out against the military courts' free hand with administrative detention orders, which allow Palestinians to be held without trial and can be renewed indefinitely.
IDF’s achievements in 2017 marred by political attacks (Ron Ben-Yishai, Ynet) The past year proved the State of Israel faces no external existential threat and no real threat to its sovereignty and routine life; the Israeli army, however, was threatened by the blatant and unprecedented attempts to dictate a political agenda and a new set of moral and social values on the IDF and on its top commanders.
Unlike in Iran (Amira Hass, Haaretz+) Here in Israel, when it comes to our domination over the Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, the Jewish Israeli public is itself a regime of ayatollahs.
The unpredictability of revolution (Prof. Eyal Zisser, Israel Hayom) The protests in Iran likely pose no real threat to the ayatollahs' regime, but the desire for change in Iran, along with revulsion for the regime and its symbols, very clearly run deep.
Iran Regime's Dilemma: End Protests With Force or Persuasion? (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) Rohani's government is attempting to show the public immediate solutions that could shut down the economic protests, before it morphs into a political protest that would require a much heavier, more violent reaction.
Iran's split personality (Prof. Ze'ev Maghen, Israel Hayom) The Iranian pendulum, which has swung back and forth through the generations between nationalism and religion, is perhaps inching its way back toward nationalism.
Nukes, Riots and Proxy Wars: The Three Urgent Decisions Trump Must Make on Iran (Amir Tibon, Haaretz+) Experts on what Trump’s choices could mean for the Americans, Iranians and the Middle East.
The events in Iran are great news for the State of Israel and for the entire Middle East (Ephraim Ganor, Maariv) The success of the protest will liberate not only the citizens of Iran from the tyranny of the ayatollahs' regime, but will create a new order in the region. Without the support of Tehran, Hezbollah, Hamas and even the Palestinians, they will have to rethink their path.
In Iran, When Does a Protest Become a Revolution? (Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz+) Any outside intervention or statements by Western or Israeli politicians will mainly serve the regime in its claims that the protests are somehow being organized by foreign powers.
Iranian protestors keeping with revolutionary tradition (Nadav Eyal, Yedioth/Ynet) Iran is a much more open country than Israelis think, and people there are used to protests; only this time, unlike in 2009, the slogans they are chanting—‘Death to Khamenei,’ ‘Death to Hezbollah,’ ‘We don’t want an Islamic republic’—are no longer within the Iranian state’s norms.
Jerusalem and Now Iran: Is Donald Trump Turning Into a Morally Serious President? (Jonathan S. Tobin, Haaretz) Trump's detractors can't accept his moral legitimacy: he must be opposed under any and all circumstances. But the president has now shown he'll state important foreign policy truths, most recently on Iran - a moral test that Obama failed.
The "trauma,” according to which the right-wing overthrew a right-wing government in 1992 did not happen (Prof. Arieh Eldad, Maariv) The truth is different from what is now presented. If there were a lesson to be learned from those days, it is to wage an all-out war against corruption and unite around a worthy leader, faithful to the Land of Israel and clean of hands.
It Happened in Yesha-stan, So Who Gives a Damn? (Amira Hass, Haaretz) Raids seizing construction materials in Palestinian outposts in the West Bank are so commonplace they've become a non-story. Still, they happen.
Those refusing to serve in the army come from the left-wing, yet religious Zionism is being attacked for its loyalty to the IDF (Kalman Liebeskind, Maariv) We all know the eternal question: "To whom are the religious soldiers more loyal, to the rabbi or to the commander?" But history and facts show that the birth of refusal is rooted only in the gardens of the left-wing.
In the Name of Statesmanship (Nave Dromi, Haaretz+) The real threat to Israel is the loss of statesmanlike behavior, as a result of which we will become a violent, uncontrolled society.

Interviews:
I, an Israeli citizen, joined ISIS and lived to tell the tale
An Israeli recounts slipping into Syria under fire, fighting his first battle, taking part in a beheading and making an unlikely return home. (Interviewed by Jack Khoury in Haaretz includes photos and audio)
 

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