APN's daily news review from Israel

Monday June 24, 2019
 

Quote of the day:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links)

Israel Hayom

Top News Summary:
Declarations by US leaders regarding war against Iran, the Israeli and Palestinian responses to the US economic peace plan for the Palestinians, and the defeat of Tayip Erdogan’s candidate in the race for mayor of Istanbul were top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers.

US-IRAN CRISIS:
The Hebrew papers selected different quotes to report on the situation between the US and Iran. Maariv and Israel Hayom emphasized US National Security Advisor John Bolton’s aggressive statements that although US President Donald Trump stopped the strike on Thursday, the US army is 'ready to go'  at any point in the future. Yedioth noted that in addition to Bolton’s warnings, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also left an opening for dialogue, saying, “We are prepared to negotiate without any preconditions.” But they all agreed it wasn’t over yet. Bolton was speaking in Jerusalem alongside Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Bolton arrived for a US-Russia-Israeli security chiefs summit on Syria, but in light of the situation the discussions were expected to focus on Iran. After Bolton made his statements, an Iranian general urged the US government to act 'responsibly to protect the lives of American troops by avoiding misconduct in the region." MaarivOnline reported that Israel’s former national security council chief, Giora Eiland, said, "Trump's decision not to attack Iran was correct" and that sanctions have far more impact. However, former prime minister Ehud Olmert said that: "Trump is like Netanyahu - threatening and not shooting.” (Maariv)

TRUMP’S PEACE PLAN:
On a tour with John Bolton in the Beqaa Valley in the West Bank, Netanyahu said that, Israel will hear the U.S. peace plan in a 'fair and open manner’ and that he can’t understand why the Palestinians are rejecting it out of hand. [NOTE: The place where Netanyahu made the statement, in the Beqaa, a part of the Jordan Valley inside the West Bank, and in the company of Bolton, should have been a sign as to why the Palestinians aren’t signing off on the plan. Until the Trump era, US government officials did not visit with Israeli officials inside the occupied Palestinian territories, including E. Jerusalem, in order not to make it appear that the US considered Israel the landlords. - OH]

Indeed, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinians wouldn’t accept America as the sole mediator for the Middle East. “We don’t trust the Americans alone. We want Europe, Russia, the UN, [and] China, and we need Britain and Germany, as well. We will not be slaves or servants to [US special envoys] Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt or [US Ambassador to Israel] David Friedman. They are the ones making the judgment, and we will not accept this or let them say whatever they want.” Speaking to foreign reporters Sunday, Abbas said the Palestinians “are ready to return to the negotiating table,” just not with the Trump Administration people sitting at it. “There is no potential for a political solution” with Trump, he said. (Also Maariv) Abbas said he was prepared to talk to Israel on condition that it recognized the two-state vision and the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Fatah party called the US peace plan a “bribe to kill our national aspirations.” Fatah also urged the Arab states to reinstate the 2002 “Saudi Peace Initiative” and finance it with their own money in place of the American scheme. “The Palestinians don't need the Bahrain meeting, they need peace,” said Palestinian Authority Finance Minister Shukri Bishara.

While the Palestinians declared they won’t be bought, they are in dire financial straits. On Sunday, two days before the start of the Bahrain Conference, Arab League ministers held an emergency meeting and pledged $100 million monthly in financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, which is in a deep cash crunch after Israel decided to deduct the stipends the Palestinian Authority provides to families of jailed and deceased militants, after which the PA refused to accept the rest of the money. Also, the head of UNWRA urged donor nations to keep funds flowing for the poorest Palestinians.

And while, Netanyahu couldn’t understand why the Palestinians rejected the American economic plan, other Israelis could: a predecessor, a former Shin Bet chief a former Military Intel chief and other Israelis experts could: the lack of a political solution to the conflict was the major obstacle to the success of the economic initiatives to peace. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert told 103FM radio, ”There is no connection between the American economic plan and a peace agreement.” Olmert also said that "when I spoke with President Bush about the peace agreement that I was working on, I told him that it would cost him $50 billion that he’d have to give us. Bush said he would not finance even one dollar in evacuating illegal settlements that he did not agree to being there.” (Maariv) Former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon wrote an Op-Ed in Yedioth (See Commentary/Analysis below), saying that ignoring Palestinian national aspirations was “immoral” and not feasible. Indeed, said Dr. Nimrod Goren, Head of Mitvim - The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, "If the Americans are trying to motivate Palestinians to reach a peace deal, they are going about it the wrong way…The plan must be directly linked to a political solution to the conflict.” Former chief of IDF Military Intelligence, Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash agreed. And Yitzhak Gal, a fellow at the Dayan center for Middle East studies and Mitvim, said that the economic plan would help the Palestinian economy, but “there must be corresponding political steps.”

Meanwhile, Lebanon said the U.S. peace plan would not lure it into settling Palestinian refugees in its country and the White House rejected the request of Channel 12 News to approve the arrival of the channel’s diplomatic commentator, Dana Weiss, to the Bahrain conference tomorrow, Yedioth Hebrew reported. A source in the company: "They did not like some of the reports she gave.“ Another source from one of the television channels: "The White House is selecting who it wants from the Israeli media and is using this conference to settle accounts with various media outlets and specific reporters." (Yedioth Hebrew)
 

Quick Hits:

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Commentary/Analysis:
Trump's Peace Plan: As Deep as a Beauty Pageant Speech and Twice as Vain (David Rosenberg, Haaretz+) The Trump-Kushner excuse for a plan is like Miss America calling for world peace: Who can disagree? But the devil is in the details.
*Donald Trump's dangerous deal (Ami Ayalon, Yedioth/Ynet): By ignoring the core political issues and focusing on the economy, the American president is going down the same failed path that ultimately led to the Second Intifada.
Kushner's Plan Could Actually Be the Cure for an Ailing Palestinian Economy (Corin Degani, Haaretz+) The West Bank and Gaza face a fiscal crisis, restricted access to foreign markets and a marginalized private sector – all are ills that the contested plan addresses.
High tension line (Alex Fishman, Yedioth) A moment before the conferene in Bahrain, Israel began laying down a new electricity line to the Gaza Strip in an attempt to convince Hamas to preserve the quiet. Israel's agreement to begin to lay down the infrastructure for a new electricity line - while bypassing the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is responsible for infrastructure in the Gaza Strip - increases the tension and the animosity between Israel and Abu Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) and is seen by Ramallah as continuing to push the PA out of the arrangements in the area and to strengthen Hamas.
We Bereaved Israeli and Palestinian Parents Will Not Be Pawns in Kushner’s Peace Plan  (Robi Damelin, Haaretz+) The White House cut our funding — but now they use our photos to promote their ‘Economy First’ plan for Mideast peace.
Avichai Mandelblit poured fuel into the fire of madness instead of putting it out (Ben Caspit, Maariv) The attorney general knows exactly what he is dealing with, and he is aware of what the late attorney Jacob Weinroth tried to explain to his predecessor about the mental condition of the client (Sara Netanyahu). One of the most amazing things about the Netanyahu family's conduct is the fact that despite the first conviction, three indictments (subject to a hearing), countless State Comptroller reports, investigations, testimonies, affairs, suspicions and storms over some 10 years, everything goes on as usual. On the evening of the day on which the woman (Sara Netanyahu) was convicted, Amnon Abramovitch revealed a new letter from the legal advisor of the Prime Minister's Office, dealing with a fresh incident related to the continued abuse of the persecuted justice by helpless cleaners (at the Prime Minister’s Residence).
Case of 7-year-old Who Was Raped Reverberates With Atlanta-style Racism (Amira Hass, Haaretz+) The testimonies of residents in the ultra-Orthodox settlement in defense of the accused, Mahmoud Qatusa, are some of the only glimmers of light in this affair.
The arrogance of the old elite (Dr. Haim Shine, Israel Hayom) Those who speak incessantly of democracy and equality are the greatest hypocrites of all. People like former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit and his ilk are arrogance and condescension personified.
Why does a former Knesset speaker stand against the law that compares the BDS to anti-Semitism? (Meir Uziel, Maariv) Avraham Burg helps an organization that wants to boycott everything related to Israel, every university, every factory, every bank, every newspaper, so that it won’t provide work for Israelis and won’t talk to them at all…This month a petition was sent to the German government: "Do not compare BDS with anti-Semitism." The petition is intended to dissuade Germany from enacting a law that defines the BDS and the calls for a stifling boycott of Israel as they are: anti-Semitism. A total of 240 Israelis, most of them with explosive degrees, signed the petition. They boast that they are educated Jews and Israelis, and they are concerned about the tendency to label "Palestinian human rights supporters" as anti-Semites.
Iran’s Attack on U.S. Drone Is Just a Preview of What’s to Come in Mideast (Amos Harel, Haaretz+) Aborting the retaliatory strike is praise-worthy, but it doesn’t seem to have convinced Tehran that it’s better off stopping its provocations.
Thanks to Trump, Iran is now on the defensive (Amnon Lord, Israel Hayom) Economic sanctions on Iran may not bring results on the nuclear front, but it has already had an effect on Iran's aggression in the region, impacting the resources Tehran can afford to provide Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Something Stopped Trump From Striking Iran, and It Wasn't 150 Lives (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) U.S. president says he aborted an attack on Iran out of concern for civilians, but his real fear is what one attack could spiral into.
An Israeli Chernobyl? (Uzi Even, Haaretz+) The broadcast of the television series “Chernobyl” has again raised the question of whether such a disaster could happen in Israel. The standard answer, of course, is no. The  facts surrounding the operation of the Dimona reactor have been kept secret. In 2004, I heard the representatives of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission with my own ears provide a false report to the Knesset Science and Technology Committee – of which I was a member. In response to the reservations that I raised about it – from my experience operating the reactor – I was told that national security required it. And in fact, twice I was invited for a meeting for clarifications – or implied threats – with two heads of the Atomic Energy Commission. At those meetings, I was warned not to pursue that direction, and the warnings worked on me. It is true that the Dimona reactor is smaller than the one at Chernobyl, but it has been in operation and producing nuclear waste for almost 55 years, and all of that waste is collecting and accumulating at the reactor site. The amount of radioactive waste that has accumulated at Dimona is not very different than that dispersed in the Chernobyl disaster, which had been operational for only two years before it exploded. To accurately estimate the amount of waste at Dimona, we need to know the operating output of the reactor and how long it has been operating, but this – as I have said – is a state secret that is not to be discussed. How is the nuclear waste stored at Dimona? How well protected is it against a massive airstrike? Again, that is a well-kept secret, as in the Soviet Union. As in the Soviet Union. If there is no danger of an explosion like the one that occurred at Chernobyl, why am I concerned? Because we are surrounded by enemies who have developed sufficiently precise weapons to intentionally hit the reactor complex.
The racism of the Israeli Left has become pathological (Dr. Eitan Orkibi, Israel Hayom) Former Mossad head Shabtai Shavit's recent remarks prove that the Right no longer needs to be identified with "inferior" Mizrahi voters to be considered inherently inferior by the Left.
Avri Gilad, the line today is perhaps thin, but it is still forbidden to cross it (Nevo Shafir, Maariv) The statement by the presenter of Channel 13's morning program that "Islam is not a race, therefore I am not a racist" is part of the effort to spread the discourse to a level where facts are of no importance.
US ditches carrot-and-stick approach to Israel (Jonathan S. Tobin, Israel Hayom) At the heart of Democratic critiques of the Trump administration’s Middle East policy is a belief that the US should tell the Jewish state how to act.
Driven to suicide: The struggle of Lebanon's foreign workers (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) In Lebanon, domestic workers face abuse, beatings and slave-like conditions. Using the publicity of the web, one group is trying to change it.
Haaretz Then and Now (Odeh Bisharat, Haaretz+) I thought I would mention that, if the first edition of Haaretz, the first Hebrew newspaper here, appeared in 1919, it was preceded by more than 15 Arabic newspapers, beginning in 1908, following the Young Turk revolution in the Ottoman Empire that freed Palestinian intellectuals from the stranglehold they had been under. After this, according to scholars Ami Ayalon and Nabih Bashir, 20 newspapers were published here in Arabic prior to World War I, including Filastin, Al-Nafa’is, Al-Quds and Al-Karmil. We had a land following with milk and honey…and newspapers. Yet later, it is claimed, Palestine was a land without a people for a people without a land. What is beautiful about Haaretz in 1919 and which is also apparent today, is that its editors told it straight. The editorial in the first issue spoke simply, as if it is was self-evident, about “the liberation of our land by the British army.” And elsewhere, there was reference to the national home of the Jews “which is about to be built under the auspices and assistance of England.” Therefore, according to Haaretz, which has always appealed to people’s minds rather than their emotions, all of those slogans to the effect that Zionism fought British colonialism are nothing but a fantasy, a stubborn attempt to resemble national liberation movements that swept the globe after World War II.
Erdogan Just Suffered a Humiliating Defeat. And Thanks to Istanbul, Turkey’s Democracy Just Won a Famous Victory (Louis Fishman, Haaretz+) Denied his first victory in Istanbul’s mayoral elections on dubious grounds, Imamoglu has now won by a far larger margin of victory. He’s humbled Erdogan big time – and offered new hope for Turkey’s embattled democrats.
Zandberg Puts Meretz at Risk. Elect Horowitz for Party Leader (Raviv Drucker, Haaretz+) Meretz has only been in government for five out of the 27 years of its existence. For the past 19 years, it has not even come close to entering coalition negotiations. And yet during this period, its leaders left their mark on the country’s public life on occasion. Admiration for Yossi Sarid, Yossi Beilin, Haim Oron and Zehava Galon extended across party lines. They were able to lead public and political initiatives and they were perceived as of greater importance than the size of their party. Zandberg is of far lower standing. She barely survived the April Knesset election, and did so in no small degree because of a shift of support to Meretz by Arab voters who were disappointed with the scrapping of the Arab Joint List. The Meretz campaign was pitiful, not only because it was uninteresting, worn and gray, but also because it focused for some reason only on the chairwoman, who was repeatedly depicted in complimentary poses. The other things that Meretz had to offer were out of sight.
 

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