APN's daily news review from Israel - Sunday October 18, 2020

Quote of the day:

 "Why is Israel failing to deal with the crisis? Because our leaders have become accustomed to running the country with tricks, deceptions and lies. Corona does not understand this language.”
--Yitzhak Ilan, former Shin Bet deputy chief, posted on social media before dying of corona this weekend.*

Breaking News:
Saeb Erekat rushed to Israeli hospital in serious condition after contracting COVID
Erekat, 65, a senior member of Fatah party, has been one of the most high-profile faces of the Palestinian leadership for decades, and has been a part of negotiations with Israel. (JPost, Maariv, WAFA, Haaretz+ and Israel Hayom)

Front Page:

Haaretz

• The protest against Netanyahu returned to Balfour, masses demonstrated across Israel; demonstrators were attacked in numerous sites
• Violence against demonstrators goes up a notch, but no one cares // Bar Peleg
• The quick exit from the lockdown: Netanyahu capitulated to the ultra-Orthodox and paved the way to another lockdown // Amos Harel
• Police organized crime unit targets anti-Netanyahu protest leaders
• Rabbi Kanievsky ordered to open the yeshivas in violation of the guidelines
• Israeli delegation left this morning to Bahrain to sign the “peace declaration” and not the agreement
• Trump made fun of Biden: If I lose to the worst candidate in history, maybe I’ll leave the country
• With Zoom and not a few difficulties, the academic year opened
• Onwards, investigate // Akiva Novick on suspicions of Netanyahu’s involvement in the Submarines corruption affair
• Stop the // Ram Fruman
• (Israeli star soccer player) Eran Zehavi was found positive for corona after returning from playing game on the national team
• Yaron Zilberman returns to the Yom Kippur War in “The Hour of Closure” and hopes that it will help him dismantle the trauma
• JNF poured millions into opposing a report that the Justice Ministry requested and which recommended dismantling it - and it succeeded in making the report disappear

Yedioth Ahronoth

• Capitulation - The ultra-Orthodox ministers pressured, the government gave in (Hebrew)
• Third lockdown on the way // Sarit Rosenblum (Hebrew)
• The parade of folly // Sever Plocker
• Returning to Balfour (Photo of masses across from Prime Minister’s Residence (Hebrew)
• “Netanyahu should resign. The whole business is falling apart” - The Prime Minister’s former envoy and former senior Mossad official, David Meidan, joined the protest against Netanyahu (Hebrew)
• 3 years later, we spoke with the leaders of the #MeToo movement in Israel (Hebrew)

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

• Exiting the lockdown - Fear of clashes in ultra-Orthodox cities (that remain with restrictions)
• Former deputy chief of Shin Bet, Yitzhak Ilan, died of corona
• Back to Balfour - Thousands demonstrated around the country (against Netanyahu)
• The fear has disappeared // Ben Caspit

Israel Hayom

• “Without strict enforcement - we will quickly go back to lockdown”
• Rabbi Kanievsky ordered: Open yeshivas; Prime Minister and Gamzu: Don’t do it
• Hello to you, Bahrain (Also written in Arabic)
• From the field to quarantine: (Star national soccer player) Zahavi, was also infected
• B.A. in distance learning
• Horror in France over the beheading of the teacher: “People helped the terrorist”
• Attorney General Mendelblitt fears the publication of more phone conversations - and rightly so // Haim Shine
• Finance Minister Katz: We will bring the 2020 budget for a vote next week; Kahol-Lavan: (Do it) Without tricks
• The industrialist Michael Strauss died (from corona): “A leader and a leading businessman”

Top News Summary:
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu eased the lockdown keeping ‘red cities’ under restrictions, but under pressure from the ultra-Orthodox ‘capitulated’ (Haaretz and Yedioth) and allowed them to send their kindergarteners to school, despite the high rate of corona infection. But that was not enough for Rabbi Chaim Kanevsky, one of the leaders of the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, who ordered Torah-study schools for children over age six to remain open - in violation of the restrictions. Yedioth (Hebrew) called it ‘lawlessness sponsored by the government.’ Outside the Prime Minister’s Residence the weekly anti-Netanyahu protest renewed with gusto Saturday night after a two-week hiatus due to coronavirus restrictions. Thousands more protested at junctions across the country, 

Both Yedioth Hebrew and Maariv each reported on a notable new anti-Netanyahu protester. Yedioth Hebrew reported that David Meidan, the former Mossad official, who served as Netanyahu's coordinator on the issue of prisoners and missing persons and who brokered the Shalit deal, came to the Saturday night demonstration in Jerusalem. "For me, this is a demonstration of patriotism. I am here to make sure that my grandchildren grow up in a reformed country, this is the time for action." He said of Netanyahu: "He has been in a dizzying state for 5 years, and the country has been dizzy with him."

Maariv online reported that Mordechai Rahamim, the El-Al security guard who became famous when he thwarted the 1969 hijacking of an El Al plane in Zurich, said that even he, who is not a man of demonstrations, calls for an end to the division and agitation in the country. "Bibi is the problem and the solution,” he told Ben Caspit and Inon Magal on 103FM.

*There were also the deaths of two people significant to Israel: one, a former top Shin Bet official, who died of corona and who had harsh words for Netanyahu, and the other a businessman who owned the Strauss dairy company. The articles in the newspapers quoted numerous top security figures praising Yitzhak Ilan, the former deputy Shin Bet chief who died of corona. But only in the Ynet Hebrew online article, was it reported that in a series of tweets in recent months, the former deputy Shin Bet chief attacked the government's conduct before his death: "Why is Israel failing to deal with the crisis? Because our leaders have become accustomed to running the country with tricks, deceptions and lies. Corona does not understand this language.” His funeral was held in the presence of a small handful of relatives.

The violence against the protesters also renewed - and increased. Punches, beatings, pepper spray and other unidentified substances sprayed in the face, curses and calls for harm. Haaretz’s Bar Peleg listed some 15 incidents of violence against anti-Netanyahu protesters by Netanyahu supporters. Peleg wrote that even though the violence is increasing against protesters, no one cares and even left-wing politicians have grown tired of condemning the violence. After a demonstration in Haifa on Thursday, even a police officer was filmed kicking and pepper spraying a protester. And a court extended the detention of the man who sabotaged the electricity at the Haaretz building in Tel-Aviv, saying the attack was politically motivated.

Not making a big splash, except on the front page of the pro-government ‘Israel Hayom’ newspaper, was that today an Israeli delegation flew to Bahrain to sign a joint declaration. Haaretz+ noted that due to protests by the Shiite majority in the Sunni-ruled kingdom, the signing of the peace deal was postponed. Yedioth wrote a small item on it on page 7.

Also, a rocket was fired Friday toward Israel and landed in open terrain. No one and nothing were injured and it barely made today's papers. (Ynet Hebrew)

Corona Quickees:

• Coronavirus Israel Live: Preschools Reopen, Movement Restrictions Canceled as Lockdown Eased - Violating restrictions, Haredim reopen schools in hotspots ■ Israel's positive test rate falls to 3 percent ■ Restrictions to continue in 'red' cities. (Haaretz)
• Palestine registers 389 new coronavirus cases, six deaths and 336 recoveries - Five of the deaths were in the West Bank, while the sixth was in the Gaza Strip. (WAFA)
• Michael Strauss, Leading Israeli Businessman, Dies at 86 - Strauss served as chairman of the second-largest food products manufacturer in Israel, making the Strauss Group an international conglomerate that operates in some 20 countries. (Haaretz+ and Israel Hayom)
• The angry prophecy of a senior Shin Bet official, who died from a corona: "The crisis is horrifyingly managed" - In a series of tweets in recent months, Yitzhak Ilan, who fell ill with Corona and died this weekend, attacked the government's conduct: "Why is Israel failing to deal with the crisis? Because our leaders have become accustomed to running the country with tricks, deceptions and lies. Corona does not understand this language. His funeral was held in the presence of a small handful of relatives. (Ynet Hebrew)
• Israel Police Organized Crime Unit Is Targeting anti-Netanyahu Protest Leaders - Fears growing that a database is being compiled on the activists, who do not have criminal records, but the police deny the allegation. (Haaretz+)
• Iran extends COVID curbs in capital as nationwide deaths exceed 30,000 - The Islamic republic, the pandemic hardest-hit country in the Middle East, is experiencing its third surge of coronavirus infections. (Israel Hayom)
   

Quick Hits:

• 25 years since Rabin's assassination: For the first time, there will be no state memorial service - Due to the corona restrictions and the renovations at the cemetery of the greats of the nation on Mount Herzl, for the first time this year no state ceremony will be held in Rabin's memory. The family will hold a limited ceremony, without a live broadcast, and a special plenary session will convene in the Knesset. (Yedioth/Ynet Hebrew)
• Israel Approves Thousands More Homes in West Bank Settlement - Despite UAE accord blocking annexation, 2020 proves to be the biggest year for the settlement enterprise in close to a decade. (Haaretz+)
• Five European Countries Condemn Israeli Plans for New Homes in West Bank Settlements - U.K. France, Germany, Spain and Italy slam approval of thousands of new homes, calling it 'counterproductive' in light of normalization deals. (Haaretz+)
• Three Palestinians Shot, One Seriously Injured at Kufur Qaddoum March on Saturday - One of the three young men, shot by Israeli soldiers, was seriously injured, after being struck in the chest, local sources revealed, at the weekly gathering east of Qalqilia city. (IMEMC and PHOTO)
• Occupation forces injure three Palestinians in Kafr Qaddum Friday - Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated rounds and teargas at the protesters, injuring three of them and causing many cases of suffocation from gas inhalation. For years, the village of Kafr Qaddum has been at the heart of a national campaign protesting against the Israeli colonial settlement activities in the occupied West Bank. Almost every day, clashes erupt in the village with Israeli occupation forces during protests against the Israeli settlements. (WAFA)
• Saudi FM: Focus of Mideast peace talks should be Israel-PA conflict - The main focus of Middle East peace efforts should be to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan al Saud said on Thursday in a comment suggesting that Israeli-Saudi normalization is unlikely any time soon. (Israel Hayom)
• Top Hamas official: Arab states have severed financial aid to Palestinian - The Americans want to erase the Palestinian issue and make Israel a legitimate part of the Middle East, but "this won't come to pass without a resolution to the [Palestinian] matter," warns Deputy Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri. (Israel Hayom)
• Israeli Arab arrested after allegedly calling for murder, kidnap of Jews at protest to release hunger-striker - At an event in Haifa held in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian Maher al-Akhras, an Israeli-Arab man from Daburiyya reportedly called on the participants to murder Jews and kidnap IDF soldiers. (Israel Hayom)
• ‘Firewall’ to be placed between Netanyahu and ministers - The conflict of interest arrangement currently being drafted would also prevent senior officials from the Prime Minister's Office from acting on its behalf in matters relating to law enforcement and justice systems. (Haaretz+)
• Attorney general says Netanyahu received benefits in shares affair, but no basis for probe - Circumstances don't not provide adequate foundation to order a criminal investigation against Netanyahu, Mendelblit and Justice Ministry officials say. (Haaretz+ and Israel Hayom and Ynet)
• Israel Examines Using Grenade-launched Mini Drones - At $2,000 a pop with a 2-5 kilometer flight range, Israeli company Spear’s smallest drone weighs less than 250 grams and can be fired from a grenade launcher. (Haaretz+)
• The Israeli Army Boasts About Women in Tech Roles. It’s ‘Juking the Stats’ - The IDF told us that 50 percent of all its technical roles were filled by women. A closer examination shows how far the army still has to go on gender equality in STEM. (Haaretz+)
• Brawl Breaks Out Between (Christian) Armenian and (Jewish) Azerbaijanis on Jerusalem Highway - The Armenian National Committee of Jerusalem characterized the brawl as an 'ambush' by an 'Azerbaijani mob’ and posted video of the attack. The attack took place on Saturday when about ten young men, apparently Jews of Azeri descent, stopped a group of Armenian (Christian) protesters returning home from a protest outside the Knesset against Israel’s sale of arms to Azerbaijan. Police broke up the fight, detaining nine and evacuating two wounded individuals for medical treatment. (Haaretz+ and i24NEWS and VIDEO of Azeri-Israeli jumping on Armenian’s car and other Azeri-Israelis beating Armenians, photo of broken windshield on Armenian’s car)
• Most garbage off Israel's coast is from plastic bags and packaging - Despite promises, Oceanographic Institute reports situation is not getting better, recommends filtering out plastic garbage from municipal drainage systems that empty into the sea. (Haaretz+)
• How a Fire-foiling Plan Left Herds of Antelope Roaming Army Bases in Israel - When the antelopes started to multiply, so did the problems, but the animals now seem at home in their unusual surroundings. (Haaretz+)
• U.S. election race reaches streets of Tel Aviv with pro-Trump posters - Democrats and Republicans both targeting American-Israelis, with chairman of Republican Overseas Israel estimating 25,000-30,000 eligible Florida voters are in the country. (Agencies, Israel Hayom)
• Citizens of Arab countries hunger for democracy, survey finds - The 2019-20 Arab Opinion Index, which surveyed representative sample of 13 Arab countries on domestic and international issues, finds that less than half of citizens of 13 Arab countries surveyed are satisfied with their governments, and the strongest opposition to recognizing Israel comes from Algeria. (Israel Hayom)
• Iran says one of two 'large scale' cyber attacks targets country's ports - In May, a cyber attack attributed to Israel on Iran's Shahid Rajaee port caused massive backups on waterways and roads leading to the facility. (Agencies, Haaretz)

Features:

For Bedouin Israeli University Students, Remote Learning Is an Obstacle Course
Often with no internet access at home and weak cellphone connections in their unrecognized villages, they might start dropping out, educators fear. (Shira Kadari-Ovadia, Haaretz+)
A population at risk
A man attacked in an elevator needed stitches, a busride inspector who got slapped, a supermarket manager who was severely beaten, and a coffee shop manager who was hit with a helmet on his head. All of these people are ordinary citizens who became victims of severe violence just because they dared to comment to passersby that they were not wearing a mask in public space. (Dudi Patimer, Maariv Magazine supplement, cover)
'What Hell Feels Like': Israel Demolished This Palestinian Family's Hut. They Have Nowhere to Go
For 20 years, a diabetic woman who is going blind lived with her family in a wretched encampment in the Jordan Valley. In recent weeks, Israeli forces demolished the site twice, and they threaten to return. (Gideon Levy, Haaretz+)
Intel bonanza: The other Egyptian spy that saved Israel in 1973
A former Mossad agent recounts the actions of Agent “Fix” in Egypt — and reveals how Israel was able to call the Soviet Union’s bluff, but not act on it in the Yom Kippur War. (Yossi Melman, Haaretz+)
How pink became the color of the anti-Netanyahu protests
The feminine color of power, the color of hope, optimism and love: Activists explain how pink spread from a small group of artists to take over the protests. (Naama Riba, Haaretz+)


Top Commentary/Analysis:
Organized chaos: Netanyahu maliciously sabotages government work to get to the polls (Ran Edelist, Maariv) Netanyahu's refusal to pass a biennial budget is part of his campaign designed to lead to another election and eventually form a right-wing government. Even in this complex situation, the center-left bloc still has hope.
Israel's Supreme Leader Points to the Target, and the Trigger Will Be Pulled Soon (Shabtai Shavit, Haaretz+) I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I carry on my shoulders decades of dealing with the worlds of terrorism, counterterrorism, subversion and guerilla warfare. This experience has given me, I believe, the ability to recognize the direction in which things are headed, and trends whose culminations pose threats to public order and to human life.
He is paralyzed: Gantz is the wrong man, at the wrong time, in the wrong place (Ben Caspit, Maariv) History has summoned Benny Gantz to the position of the defender of democracy. I have already seen more successful castings. Now I discovered that Gantz has been handcuffed and thrown in the trunk and the steering wheel remains in Netanyahu's hands.
Let us not abandon the sovereignty plan (Dr. Joseph Frager, Israel Hayom) Whether the 2,000-year dream of reapplying Jewish sovereignty to Israel's biblical and historic heartland is advanced will depend largely on the outcome of the upcoming US presidential election.
Maybe It’s True Israel’s Jews Are Incapable of Sovereignty (Carolina Landsmann, Haaretz+) It’s hard to understand what Israel needs right now – what can help move the wheels of the Israeli reality in the right direction and what the right direction is. Recently it’s been hard for me not to think about Israel as running amok to ruin. The Jews seem like people who need what by all signs is not for their own good. And I too, like journalist Ben-Dror Yemini, was taken by Yair Netanyahu’s tweet last week: “As a full Ashkenazi Jew I am allowed to say: This group is completely screwed up.” Yemini saw the tweet as an echo of Jewish self-hatred. Yair’s self-hatred reminded Yemini of the self-hatred that he ascribed to the “extreme” left, which believes that international intervention is needed to end the occupation. Yemini isn’t the only one who ascribes auto-antisemitism to the left…Everything gets mixed into the argument in which “left” has become a synonym for Ashkenazi and “right” for Mizrahi; in which the right accuses the left of forgetting what it is to be Jewish and the left calls the right fascist and Judeo-Nazi; in which right-wing posts regret that “the Nazis didn’t finish the job…If the son of Israel’s prime minister, who was born here and imbibed Jewish sovereignty with his mother’s milk, can’t live with Israeli sovereignty that contains existential contradictions – a “we” that includes Arabs and ultra-Orthodox, Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, without subtracting anyone, we’re all limbs of one body – what should the Europeans say?
The despair of a large public on the left side of the map says explain to me (Yossi Blum Halevi, Maariv) …The despair of a large public in the left part of the political map, which is currently has no leader to replace Benjamin Netanyahu in the election, says explain to me.. Fiery and unbridled hatred as demonstrated towards the Prime Minister only takes us away from the challenges we face - rescuing from the global corona epidemic crisis in one national piece. The mass demonstrations are perhaps one of the reasons for the failure of the attempts to flatten the curve of those infected with the disease, since the permit given to them by the High Court violated the national agreement on the need to maintain the rules of physical distance between the virus carriers and the unaffected public. Curses, insults and angry cries against the existing government will only keep you away from the target, slogans like those of the Crime Minister organization and pornographic performances are a public disaster for you. I recently saw how you take 90-year-olds out to demonstrations outside the sheltered housing buildings with signs and black flags. Leave the generation of the founders of the state alone. Don’t risk and involve these holy patriarchs in a controversy that can be resolved at the ballot box.
Netanyahu sees light at end of lockdown tunnel. A rebellion or ouster could follow (Amos Harel, Haaretz+) Ultra-Orthodox leaders are already openly flirting with civil disobedience when it comes to schools. His government may not survive such a discriminatory policy. Gantz has a loaded gun. Will he use it?
A pardon, and then to the polls (Mati Tuchfeld, Israel Hayom) President Reuven Rivlin preaches unity, but avoids using his presidential authority to do the one thing that could bring us past the current chaos – pardon the prime minister and allow the country to hold a new election.
For Palestinian kids, the occupation childhood becomes a pandemic childhood, too (Umm Forat, Haaretz+) And so the stress ramps up even further. It doesn't help when you always have to prove you're a resident of your home city ■ Post #23
The protest against Netanyahu and everything he symbolizes is not going anywhere (Ben Caspit, Maariv) The feeling of suffocation is common to many of the protesters, the manifestations of violence against them do not deter them. The severe attacks on the right led to the fact that about a quarter of a million people reportedly went out Saturday to the bridges and squares.
Israel Is Unraveling, but We Won’t Go the Way of the Crusaders (Yossi Melman, Haaretz+) Syrian President Hafez Assad drew a comparison between the Crusaders and their campaigns of conquest in the Holy Land, and Zionism and the State of Israel – a well-rooted notion still prevalent among some Arabs. He was referring to the fact that the Crusaders’ presence was temporary and their hold feeble. Even if there are similarities, almost every historical comparison is simplistic, certainly one between the Zionist project and the Crusader kingdoms.
Everyone is talking about the "people of Israel." Didn’t you forget something? (Dr. Nasreen Haddad Hajj-Yahya, Ynet Hebrew) Even when dealing with purely civic issues, populist politicians are careful to differentiate the Jewish public from the Arab in the name of some threatened collectivism.
Free Palestinian Hunger Striker Maher Akhras Now (Haaretz Editorial) For the second time, the High Court of Justice denied the request for release by administrative detainee Maher Akhras, who has been on a hunger strike for over two and a half months. Akhras, who is hospitalized in Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot in serious condition, was offered a deal on Wednesday: End his hunger strike and in return the government would commit itself not to renew the administrative detention order against him when it expires on November 26. But this offer was accompanied by a condition: The detention could be renewed if new evidence concerning Akhras is received about the “danger expected from his release.” Akhras rejected the proposal and demanded to be released without conditions. When it comes to administrative detention, the High Court has given in time after time to the security establishment, even though this has no place in a country governed by law. Instead of stating in a clear and decisive voice, once and for all, that detentions without trial are unacceptable in a democratic country; Instead of ruling that if the state has suspicions about a person, or if it thinks he is dangerous, it must present an indictment against him and put him on trial – the High Court continues to approve administrative detention and ignore the danger it embodies.
Too Hard to Swallow: Palestinian Hunger Striker Is Dying, and the Whole System Is Complicit (Ilana Hammerman, Haaretz+) “According to the professional literature, he’s in the category of clinical death,” the doctor told me. I attended the lengthy hearing and in the vast, imposing courtroom my ears strained to take in all the erudite details about the precise legal standing of a person whose days are numbered if he is not immediately released. I have a copy of the protocol and reading it confirmed for me yet again what I already knew when I sat down there: There was no justice here, only a distortion of justice. For the entire Israeli justice system, military and civilian, which holds the Palestinians in its vice and keeps them trapped in their towns and villages, which dispossesses them of their lands, sends them to rot in jail by the tens of thousands on the basis of laws and regulations that an occupying power has no authority to legislate – the entire system is evil, the embodiment of evil.
Thousands of His Followers Could Have Died of COVID-19. Does This Rabbi Care? (Akiva Eldar, Haaretz+) How many bottles of Champagne would be opened in the Balfour Street fortress if a protest leader – let’s say Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Haskel – were to contract COVID-19, God forbid? It’s easy to imagine the fuss that would be kicked up were he to exploit his heightened public profile in order to get superior medical care. What a scandal would erupt if, right after recovering, the country’s leading protester called on Israelis to return in large numbers to the demonstrations outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Jerusalem home, ignoring social distancing and forgetting their face masks. But this is what the revered rabbi, Yissachar Dov Rokeach, has done.
Could Israel-Lebanon Talks Bring Sides Closer to Resolving Land Border? (Amos Harel, Haaretz+) Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Assaf Orion, who took part in several negotiations with the Lebanese army, says the talks show that two enemy states can sit together and discuss differences.
A new blow to Iran's forgotten Jews (Rafael Medoff, Israel Hayom) Iran's 25,000 Jews are the victims of officially sanctioned discrimination and harassment, and even though some may try, that cannot be denied.
War Tore Their Country Apart. Now It's Sending Young Syrians to Fight in Foreign Battlefields (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) From Libya to Azerbaijan, Syrian mercenaries hired by Russia and Turkey as their homeland sinks into a political stalemate rife with unemployment and few prospects.
Arab MKs rejection of UAE deal is unforgivable (Jalal Bana, Israel Hayom) In their vote against the treaty, members of the Joint Arab List proved they aren't only anti-war but also anti-peace, and to a large extent, against any Arab country that wants normal and friendly relations with Israel.
With its economy plummeting, Iran is waiting for a new U.S. president (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) Criticism of President Rohani has been growing, mostly over the absence of economic planning and management, but that's not only the result of the latest wave of U.S. sanctions.
Dumbing down the 'Jewish Nobel Prize' (Jonathan S. Tobin, Israel Hayom) Did the Jewish people really need their own Nobel Prize? To the three wealthy Russian Jewish business "oligarchs" who endowed the Genesis Prize with $50 million in contributions, the answer was "yes." The Genesis Prize Foundation was set up in coordination with the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Prime Minister's Office in 2012, and started handing out the annual award in 2014 to a group of rich, accomplished and, above all, famous honorees, who were then given the task of handing out $1 million in grants to worthy causes. The Prize's embrace of celebrity culture with its foolish popularity contest illustrates why so many young people are turned off by the Jewish world.

 

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