Quote of the day:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

Israel Hayom

News Summary:
Tension in the north as the Syrian Army blasted its way to conquering southern Syria along the Golan Heights border and after at least three earthquakes in northern Israel sent tremors across the country (for which an ultra-Orthodox lawmaker said Reform Jews were to blame), making top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers along with the latest on the rescue operation of the Thai youth trapped in a flooded cave. Also in the news, Israel began preparing the ground for demolishing the Bedouin Khan al-Ahmar community in the West Bank.  

Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot visited the Golan Heights yesterday, where he received a military on the situation in southern Syria, where refugees are amassing on the border as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's army battled the last rebel-held strongholds in southwest Syria and Yedioth reported that Israel was concerned about the Syrian Army forces entering the demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights with heavy weapons, in violation to agreements, and which could lead to a confrontation. Channel 10 reported that Israel approved a request by the United Nations to install radars in the buffer zone to warn of explosive devices in the area, but that Damascus rejected the proposal. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that it was “unrealistic” to expect Iran's complete withdrawal from Syria. And a senior French source told Al-Hayat that "There is an understanding between Israel and Hezbollah regarding mutual refraining from attacks.” So the Israeli attacks in Syria are limited to Iranian targets. The report also said that “Hezbollah intends to bring thousands of its fighters in Syria back to Lebanon.” (Maariv)

As numerous people were wounded in clashes (also Maariv) that erupted when Israeli bulldozers came to prepare to demolish the little Bedouin West Bank village of Khan al-Ahmar, European countries slammed Israel and warned they would take action, Haaretz+ reported. (Video) Israeli forces also detained a B’tselem field researcher, who was filming at the village east of East Jerusalem, and J Street was “outraged” over the planned demolition and J Street head Jeremy Ben-Ami accused Israel of using America’s Independence Day as a cover to begin the work.
 

Quick Hits:

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Features:

How a Group of Jewish Terrorists Ended Up in Israel's Halls of Power
A new documentary series about the Jewish Underground charts the movement’s terrorist activities in the 1980s and the influence its members now exert on modern politics. Director Shai Gal hopes his show serves as a wake-up call. (Allison Kaplan Sommer, Haaretz+)
100 days of incendiary kites, balloons landing in south Israel
Southern residents decry government's lack of solutions to terrorizing phenomenon, which has scorched swathes of Israeli farmland; parents, who were children when rocket attacks began, lament that they now have to raise their children in such a hostile environment; 'There’s a feeling of desperation and exhaustion.’ (Matan Tzuri, Yedioth/Ynet)
 
Commentary/Analysis:
To Israelis a child is a child, unless he is a Palestinian (Assia Ladizhinskaya, Haaretz+) The separation of migrant kids from their parents in the United States caused outrage, but for decades Palestinian children have faced detention away from their homes.
The farmers have other problems besides the burning kites (Barak Omega, Ynet Hebrew) One day the fires in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip will be extinguished, but the industry will remain with the same problems because Israel prefers to buy tomatoes from the Gaza Strip and not from its own farmers.
There Is Nothing Jewish About Protecting Refugees (Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz+) Every Jewish denomination picks and chooses from tradition, according to their political needs: Deport, absorb, protest, stay quiet. On one of the great defining issues of Western politics today, there’s simply no one true Jewish take.
The "Breaking the Silence Law" is a correction using the wrong means and at an intolerable price (Dr. Ricky Tessler, Maariv) The bill proposed by Habayit Hayehudi joins a series of anti-democratic laws. Luckily, critical thinking of young people in the digital age is not a product of the education system alone.
Syria’s Assad has become Israel’s ally (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) Israel wants Assad to remain in power. Both Israel and the Syrian president now depend on Russia, and when Israel threatens Syria over Iran, it should know it's threatening Putin, too.
The courage to say yes (Clifford D. May, Israel Hayom) Many Palestinians dream of the day when their children will not be taught to hate. We can only hope they will bravely rise up against their obstructionist leaders and say it is time for peace.
The Bedouins flock to study in the Palestinian Authority (Dr. Pinchas Haliva, Ynet Hebrew) Language gaps and feelings of alienation send young people from the Bedouin areas (of Israel) to universities beyond the Green Line or to Jordan. The result is that the problem is duplicating itself and the non-integration into Israeli society is worsening. The Education Ministry can do something about it…At Ashkelon Academic College, we are making great efforts, for the fourth year, to integrate students from the Bedouin sector through tutoring, reinforcement, tutoring and special transportation. However, the percentage of failures among them is relatively high compared to that of students from other weak sectors (of society who are) on campus. The decision by the Planning and Budgeting Committee to increase aid to institutions in order to integrate the Bedouin sector in the south is indeed correct and good, but additional and complementary actions must be taken. In this way, the Ministry of Education and the Council of Higher Education must re-examine the continued recognition of academic studies in the Palestinian Authority, unless real supervision of the content and level of education is imposed. Many public figures in the Bedouin sector did not conceal to me their displeasure with the fact that young people flock to study there. And this is due to the recognition that these studies do not serve them and do not promote the possibility of integrating them in the future in the Israeli economy and society. (Dr. Pinchas Haliva is the CEO and founder of the Ashkelon Academic College)
Hamas' Cyber Honeypot Exposes Israeli Weakness and Tech Giants' Complicity(Oded Yaron, Haaretz+) The terror organization’s espionage operation drove home the truism that humans are the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain.
The day on which Meretz became worse than the Joint List (Adv. Yoram Sheftel, Maariv) Sheftel referred to the bill to offset the salaries of the terrorists, which the leftist party had opposed: "Even the Zionist Camp voted in favor. (Meretz) has become a political arm of Hamas and Fatah.
Discontent Can Still Bring Down Erdogan - and Turkey (Louis Fishman, Haaretz+) Erdogan can now crush Turkey's democracy – but not the deepening dissent with his rule. His only real means of assuring his pre-eminence is the further imposition of punitive and oppressive measures on civil society.