APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday October 27, 2020

Quote of the day:

"That America heaps love on Trump, among other reasons because he says out loud what people are thinking in the age of political correctness. He gives them a voice, representation, legitimacy, at a time when most media outlets cast them as racist, stupid, shallow rabble. When you meet them, you discover that they aren't exactly the dubious marginalized characters that they appear as in magazine articles about lawless militias or white supremacists thugs – they are Americas, working people, producers, entrepreneurs, members of the community, who love their country and think differently than the Democrats do. That is all they are guilty of."
--'Israel Hayom's' Editor-in-Chief, Boaz Bismuth, writes from the US about supporters for US President Donald Trump.*

Front Page:

Haaretz

• State Comptroller report on epidemic did not deal with the administration of the crisis and did not rule who is responsible for it // Ido Efrati
• State Comptroller: Phone tracking is ineffective and harms privacy
• A week to US elections - The division between voters between the Biden and Trump camps is noticeable in ethnicity, age, gender, religion, education and financial situation // Chemi Shalev
• When Trump threatens not to transfer the power  if he loses, he is continuing another chapter in a long history of violence and corruption meant to preserve white authority // Yael Sternhell
• Education Ministry is disconnected from the field and the municipalities want to take the reigns // Or Kashti
• After-school daycare for 1st and 2nd graders will return to operation, hair salons and cosmetician clinics will open next week
• 80% of the properties that Jerusalem Municipality allots to private NGOs - goes to the ultra-Orthodox
• After intervention of President and Attorney General, Museum of Islam requested that the private auction (at Sotheby’s) be postponed
• Continuing waste // Nehamia Shtresler on Finance Minister’s management
• Without domestic peace // Yossi Hershkovitz on the law to prevent economic peace in the family
• Sold out story // Ariana Melamed writes that the program of Boaz Golan and Arel Segal is conspiratory entertainment for the benefit of the Prime Minister

Yedioth Ahronoth

• Lessons for the rich - The wealthier municipalities will fund five days a week of classes for 1st and 2nd graders
• The photographer’s version (of the assassination of Rabin) (Hebrew)
• America’s fateful week

Maariv This Week

• Looking for less restrictions
• Corona criticism - State Comptroller report reveals the failures in the treatment of the epidemic
• Attack in Rosh Ha’ayin was thwarted: Resident of Qalqilya was arrested with a loaded gun in his possession

Israel Hayom

• Municipalities: Let us navigate (school studies)
• Corona cabinet: Hair salons and cosmetic clinics will open on Sunday
• US votes: The fateful week // Boaz Bismuth in Pennsylvania
• Trump is simply beloved // Boaz Bismuth
• The virus will pass, the hatred for the ultra-Orthodox will remain // Yehuda Schlesinger

 


Top News Summary:
The State Comptroller report on Israel’s handling of the coronavirus crisis said Shin Bet’s invasive tracking was ineffective (but didn’t say who in government was responsible for badly handling the campaign against COVID), the corona cabinet decided to allow hairdressers and beauty parlors to reopen on Sunday and allow grades 1-4 to go back to school part-time (while some municipalities have found ways to quietly go back full-time) and the US is in the fateful week in the run-up to elections (‘Israel Hayom’ commentators wrote that US President Donald Trump is the more popular candidate in the US) making the top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers. And Maariv reported that Kahol-Lavan rejected the Likud idea to run Kahol-Lavan chairman, Defense Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz as President in exchange for dropping the premiership rotation.

The papers also ran stories about prime minister Yitzhak Rabin ahead of the anniversary of his assassination. Haaretz+ reported that the lesson plan at religious schools about Rabin’s assassination won’t teach that incitement was a major factor in the murder. Yedioth Hebrew interviewed Roni Kempler, the only person filming at the scene of the assassination and who provided the only video documentation of the three shots Yigal Amir fired at Rabin. Kempler told Yedioth, “The hardest part for me was to see that they suspected Yigal Amir, but didn’t stop him. When you look back, it's horrifying.” Yedioth also reported that thousands of people are calling to suspend senior ‘Israel Hayom’ and Army Radio commentator, Jacob Bardugo, after he called Rabin Square as ‘Malkei Yisrael (Kings of Israel) Square,’ the name it had before Rabin’s assassination. (Also Haredim10 Hebrew) and was allowed to be published upon the filing of the indictment yesterday.

Also an unusual story about a Palestinian who planned to kill a soldier so that he could achieve an act against the occupation while being killed himself [suicide is prohibited in Islam - OH], because he wanted to die after the woman he loved was killed in a car accident, but avoided killing Israeli citizens who weren’t soldiers. About one year ago, Muitaz Musa Hasin Ber’i, a Palestinian from Qalqilya, bought from his employer, an Israeli contractor in Rosh Ha’ayin, an improvised pistol for 14,000 shekels and practiced shooting in the mountains. In August 2020, the woman he loved was killed in a car accident. He decided to end his life and chose the path of a nationalist attack while taking the life of a Jew before he died, wrote Maariv. [Meaning he expected to be killed by Israeli security forces]. He wrote to his family "forgive me" and asked them to pay his debts. He then infiltrated into Israel with the gun, reached Rosh HaAyin, where, according to the indictment, he planned to kill only a soldier or a security guard. Yedioth Hebrew's correspondent Elisha Kimon reported that on his way he encountered a mother and daughter and decided not to harm them because in his religious beliefs children should not be harmed and that he did the same when he met a father, with whom he spoke, and then decided not to kill him when he saw the man’s baby in the car. Maariv reported that according to the indictment he chose not to kill a woman and her daughter and not to kill Jewish workers [which contradicts the Yedioth report that he would have killed the parents of the children if the children weren't there - OH]. He walked around for two hours with a cocked gun until the police found him and overtook him after receiving tips about him. The charge attributed to him is an attempt to cause death intentionally. Ber’i is said to have pleaded guilty to the charge. [A good question would be whether he tried to fire a shot at the police or whether he was just waiting to be killed. - OH]

 

Quick Hits:

• Israel's top court suspends administrative detention of Palestinian hunger striker - Maher Akhras, striking for more than 90 days, remains at an Israeli hospital after justices rule that the remainder of his administrative detention [imprisoned with charges or trial, for which he is hunger-striking in protest - OH] will be reconsidered upon his release from treatment. At the beginning of the hearing, the prosecution demanded that the administrative detention order be renewed, but after the judges criticized it, an agreement was reached that al-Ahras would remain hospitalized at Kaplan Hospital, and the administrative detention order would be suspended. Al-Ahras announced that he was continuing his hunger strike and reconsidered upon his release from treatment. An Irish lawmaker demanded the immediate release of Al-Ahras. MK Ahmad Tibi posted a photo of Al-Ahras hugging his daughter, Tuka, Sunday after intervention from High Court. (Haaretz+ and Ynet Hebrew)
• Israeli Employer Takes Hours to Report Death of Palestinian in Work Accident - The case of Majdi Hamad, whose family claims there was a delay in taking him to a hospital Tuesday, highlights the problem of employees of Israeli companies in the West Bank who lack Israeli worker safety oversight. (Haaretz+)
• Hamas Releases Palestinian Activist Arrested After Zoom Call With Israelis - Although two detainees were released after accusations of 'treason' in rare dialogue, one organizer is still expected to receive a suspended sentence. (Agencies, Haaretz and Ynet)
• Foreign Minister Malki at UN Security Council: Call for an international conference demonstrate commitment to peace - Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Malki reiterated President Mahmoud Abbas' call to convene an international peace conference to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. “This call is the ultimate demonstration of our commitment to peace and to a path based on inclusion, not exclusion, legality not illegality, negotiations not diktats, multilateralism not unilateralism," he said at the session held virtually. (WAFA and Ynet)
• Amb. Gilad Erdan at the UN Security Council: "Palestinians reject any proposal for peace" - In his first speech to the UN Security Council, the Israeli ambassador attacked the Palestinian foreign minister: "Now everyone sees that the Palestinians are inciting." Erda  also attacked the conduct of the Security Council in its treatment of Israel over the past decades. (Maariv and JPost and VIDEO)
• Speakers at the UNSC denounce Israel's settlement plans, support call for an international peace conference - Nickolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process said Israeli authorities' recent advancing of some 5,000 settlement housing units in West Bank “is of great concern," and impedes contiguity of future Palestinian state. Similar condemnation of Israel's settlement activities came from representatives of Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Belgium, while Russia, China, Vietnam, Tunisia, Indonesia, South Africa, the Niger, the Dominican Republic. (WAFA)
• Palestinian house demolished by Israel for construction in Area C of the occupied West Bank - Israeli soldiers demolished the two-room house in an area known as Wad el-Awar, south of Hebron, in Area C, alleging it was built without a permit. (WAFA)
• After UAE Deal, Israel Asks U.S. for F-22 Stealth Jets to Preserve Military Edge - The American F-22 Raptor is the most advanced fighter plane in the world, and defense officials who claim to have been left out of the loop on the sale of the F-35s to the UAE are now trying to press their case for it. (Haaretz+)
• Sudan’s Leader Says Deal With Israel Is 'Incentive' to End Pariah Status - Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan says that without normalization now, Sudan would have had to wait until late next year to be removed from U.S.'s list of state sponsors of terrorism. (Agencies, Haaretz and Ynet)
• Hamas delegation heads to Cairo for talks with Palestinian rival Fatah - Concerns over a recent string of diplomatic victories for Israel in the Arab world have given the Palestinian political foes an incentive to relaunch reconciliation talks as they see their closest allies back away. (Israel Hayom)
• Plan to Name Former Right-wing Politician to Head Yad Vashem Enrages Holocaust Survivors - Opponents decry candidate Effi Eitam, an ex-lawmaker and IDF commander known for harsh anti-Arab remarks, as a ‘lightning rod’ for ‘haters of Israel, anti-Semites and supporters of BDS,’ unsuited to sensitive post at Holocaust authority. (Haaretz+)
• Israel extends multi-billion-dollar program to bridge Jewish-Arab gap - Plan 922 was set to expire in December with around a third of the budget – more than three billion shekels ($88 million) still unused. Approval came after last-minute debate between Likud and Kahol-Lavan parties. Likud wanted to remove the proposal from the agenda and reformulate it with the Finance Ministry. Kahol-Lavan contested, leading to compromise in which Finance Minister Yisrael Katz would also receive credit for the program. (Israel Hayom)
• Black Cube CEO Suspected of Running Crime Organization. Revealed: The Romania Interrogation - At the request of the Romanian government, the head of Israeli private intelligence firm Black Cube was questioned in 2016 over an operation in Bucharest. Leaked transcripts of his interrogation offer a rare window into the shadowy world of political espionage. (Haaretz+)
• Facing Outcry, Jerusalem's Islamic Art Museum Asks Sotheby's to Postpone Auction of Rare Artifacts - British auction house to delay the sale, set for Tuesday, at museum collection's owner request after intervention from Israel's president and culture minister. (Haaretz+)
• In Historic First, Woman to Lead Conservative-Masorti Movement in Israel - The trailblazing appointment will take place during a period of significant growth for Israel's branch of Conservative Judaism. (Haaretz+)
• 'I saw the evil, smiling face of the pilot’: Heroic Jewish Brigade Fighter Who Downed Egyptian Plane in 1948 Dies of Coronavirus at 95 - German-born Abraham Grossman sang to displaced Holocaust survivors in Bavaria at the end of World War II and helped found the Negev city of Kiryat Gat. (Haaretz+)
• Chevron gambles on Middle East reconciliation for its natural gas future - Turning its back on American shale, the gas giant is looking to strike deals with Israel and other countries after its multi-billion-dollar acquisition of Noble Energy. (Agencies, Haaretz)
• Averting Crisis, Compromise Reached on Top Jobs at Zionist Institutions - Agreement over allocation of senior positions in World Zionist Organization and its affiliates prevented deepening wedge between Israel and Diaspora. (Haaretz+)
• 'A Shande': Liberal Jewish Organizations Slam Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court Confirmation - Groups slam the Senate, which voted to confirm new justice eight days before the presidential election, as prioritizing politics over Americans' needs. (Haaretz+)
• Congressional Candidate Who Supports Antisemitic QAnon Conspiracy Theory Backed by GOP - Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is vying for a seat in the House of Representatives, has also shared a theory that ‘Zionist supremacists’ are conspiring to flood Europe with migrants to replace the white population. (Haaretz+)
• U.S. Judge Refuses to Block 'No Boycott of Israel' Measure - Lawsuit by Muslim civil rights group seeking to stop Maryland from enforcing its ban on contracting with Israel-boycotting businesses is thrown out. (Agencies, Haaretz and Ynet)
• Brawl erupts at 'Jews for Trump' event in NYC - Videos shared on Twitter show several protesters pelting the vehicles with eggs or stones, snatching flags and shouting insults. (Israel Hayom and Ynet and Ynet Hebrew and Maariv and VIDEO)
• Poll: 69% of US Jews say Republican Party holds anti-Semitic views - American Jewish Committee survey also finds 43% of American Jews feel less secure than a year ago, 56% of Jewish institutions have increased their security measures. (Israel Hayom)
• Teen Accused of Plotting to Kill Biden Is Son of Jewish Attorney Once Called ‘Schindler for Tibetans’ - Alexander Hillel Treisman's father was a well-known lawyer and activist in Santa Fe on behalf of Tibetan and Native American rights. (JTA, Haaretz+)
• Iran's Zarif Urges UN to Unite Against U.S. Unilateral Actions - At the Security Council, Israel's ambassador to the UN says he 'actually want[s] to thank Iran' for the role it played in deals with the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan. (Agencies, Haaretz)
• Trailblazing Soccer Player Becomes First Woman to Coach a Men's Team in Egypt - 'There is usually some mockery at the beginning,' the ex-captain of the women's national team said, 'but then they realize that they will learn something, that they will develop their skills.’ (Agencies, Haaretz)
• Australia protests Qatar airport’s exams of women passengers - Australia will await a report from the Qatari government before 'we will determine the next steps,' Foreign Minister Marise Payne said. (Agencies, Haaretz)
• Iranian FM labels insulting Muslims 'an abuse of free speech' - Insulting Muslims is an "opportunistic" abuse of free speech, Iran's foreign minister said on Monday, in an apparent reference to remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron perceived to be critical of Islam. (Israel Hayom)
• Erdogan urges Turks to boycott French goods due to Macron's 'anti-Islam' agenda - Turkish leader says French president needs a mental health check, repeating rebuke that caused Paris to recall its ambassador from Ankara this weekend. (Agencies, Haaretz)
• Amid cartoon dust-up, Pakistan calls on Facebook to ban Islamophobia as it did Holocaust denial - Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey showed rare unity in their condemnation of over France displaying images of the Prophet Mohammad. (Agencies, Haaretz)

Features:

At a Long Island ‘Jews for Trump’ Rally, Orthodox Jewry’s Political Contradictions Take Center Stage
While some came ready to cheer on Trump’s Israel policies or support for religious freedom, others wore masks with messages like 'worn by force, not by fear.' (Shira Hanau, JTA, Haaretz)
Silicon Valley takes on the pro-Palestine left
Zoom's cancellation of an event with Leila Khaled illustrates tech companies' deference to right-wing, pro-Israel demands. But there are ways to fight back. (Amitai Ben-Abba, 972mag)
This Israeli Fashion Brand Is Bringing Palestinian Embroidery to the World’s Top Stores
Amit Luzon and Eyal Eliyahu wanted to establish a Middle Eastern streetwear brand, but a trip to the occupied territories revealed a whole new world to them. Now their Adish label is attracting international acclaim but criticism closer to home. (Liroy Choufan, Haaretz+)
In East Jerusalem, the settler project is expanding underground
Elad's politicization of archaeology, most notably through the City of David park in East Jerusalem, erases Palestinians and their history. (Natasha Roth-Rowland, 972mag)

Top Commentary/Analysis:
“(Rabin’s legacy) is not my legacy": Minister Orly Levy-Abukasis forgot that she holds a government position (Dr. Orit Miller-Katab, Maariv) "Rabin is yours. Not mine. He has no connection to me," said Minister of Community Strengthening and Advancement, Orly Levy-Abukasis last week. In another interview, she claimed she was shocked by the assassination, but "I have no idea what Rabin's legacy is, but it's not my legacy." When the minister makes her way to her office in Jerusalem, does she occasionally remember that long before there was a prime minister of Israel, Rabin was commander of the Harel Brigade in the War of Independence, and under his command the road to Jerusalem was opened, the siege of the city was lifted and Sheikh Jarrah, Katamon and Mount Zion neighborhoods were liberated? As is well known, Rabin later served as deputy commander of Operation Danny, in which the cities of Lod and Ramla were liberated and Lod Airport was liberated. Under his command as chief of staff during the Six Day War, Jerusalem was liberated, and Israel tripled its size, with the addition of Judea and Samaria, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai and the Golan Heights. Operation Entebbe to liberate the hijackers in Uganda, where Rabin served as prime minister, is one of Israel's points of pride. The peace agreement that Rabin signed with Jordan is also a tremendous achievement. Rabin wanted to reach a solution with the Palestinians as well, and by leading to the Oslo Accords he wholeheartedly believed that there was a chance for peace. Every prime minister wants to bring to the country a significant achievement that will advance the lives of the citizens and lead to prosperity. The wave of terror that swept Israel following the Oslo Accords shocked Israel and the world. It was a terrible time of terror, bereavement and fear. Each attack led to resentment over government policy and demonstrations against it. Unfortunately, we faced another violent wave of terror from the Second Intifada that broke out in 2000. Later, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to implement the disengagement plan from Gush Katif in 2005. Many demonstrations took place even then against the move. Demonstrations are a civil right in a democracy. We witness this every Saturday night. It is legitimate for the public to choose to express their disagreement with the conduct of the state. But a prime minister must never pay with his life for disagreement over his policies. Public discourse must soften. Elected officials must maintain stateliness and understand that their statements have a decisive impact on the public. When a minister for liaison with communities in a country detaches herself from entire communities in a country by making such a statement, she is sinning against her role. We are witnessing the normalization of relations with Arab countries and we are happy about that. It is said that peace is made with enemies; Now is the time to make peace inside the house as well.
Congratulations to Netanyahu on the historic achievement, those going to ruin salute you (Yitzhak Ben-Ner, Maariv) The day before yestereday I read the following post on Facebook: "I have no job. My wife has been fired. My teenage son wants to commit suicide. The daughter is locked in a room in front of a screen, 24/7. The grandparents have not seen the grandchildren in months. Their great-grandmother passed away. "I gave away  the dog. Only one thing encourages me very much: the renewal of ties with Sudan." He literally stole my words from the keyboard. So, we, a million job seekers, forced to be on unpaid leave, fired, business owners who closed about nine months ago; hundreds of thousands who have lost employment and livelihood security, who have fallen into poverty; Who need the help of the merciful, when the government is opaque and its promises are false, and who are sometimes forced to look in the garbage for the leftovers of the meals of others; And we, who make a living from service, tourism, hospitality, entertainment, theater, creation, that we can not guide, entertain, sell, buy, perform and create; And we, the working parents, who are forced to stay with our children at home, and are anxious whether our children are indeed spreading corona or not, and we have no idea when, how, how much and why schooling will begin, if at all, in schools or Zoom, in grades one to four, half a week or five days, in pods or in groups, indoors or outdoors, with protected teachers and tests, masks and supervision, without or with daycare and transportation; And we, the protesters at Balfour, at Paris Square, at Rabin Square, at intersections, on bridges, on balconies and in convoys from all over the country, who wonder where they will try to harass us violently, the (Public Security Minister) Ohana police (there are also responsible police) or the far-right; We, who demand the departure of the one who took over our lives, who divided, lied, caused hatred, incited and divided between the parts of the people and attacked with his followers the institutions of democracy and the preservation of law and justice in Israel; Those whose emissaries canceled a Knesset vote to establish a committee of inquiry into Netanyahu’s allegedly dubious part in the submarine affair in Germany and the shares of his cousin; The evasive man who reportedly lied about the F—35 stealth jets and refuses to prepare a budget for 2021 until an opening is found for the election and to screw Gantz, the replacement; The Flutist from Balfour, who utterly failed in the plans to subdue the Corona virus and prevent death, disease, the socio-economic-educational rift, and who brought us, as if on purpose, into an almost chaotic state, so that he could reach exclusive governance in the First Bibi Empire; And we, who watch the daily summaries of the war in Corona and do not know whether to believe the results. This is due to the lack of choice between a biblical accordion ("the greats of the world called to learn") and the traffic light method, due to the anxiety of Rabbi Kanievsky and his ultra-Orthodox followers that paralyzes our leader, with some of the ultra-Orthodox public refusing to be tested; And the seemingly obscure deals between some of the police and some of the ultra-Orthodox leaders in order to create a semblance (or no appearance) of enforcement of educational institutions there ("equal enforcement,” as defined by Ohana…and the hidden weddings, ultra-Orthodox and Arab. Also because of the lack of latent morbidity and medical data, and test subjects' lies, which make the results on the screens unreliable, as well as the plans and steps to get out of the corona and the preparations to prevent flu integration into our reality in the coming months and the Netanyahu tendency to a third closure; But now we are all holding our breath, thrilled to the depths of our hearts, ignoring the distress and anxiety: we are grateful to you, our leader, for being able to free yourself 24/7 during the Corona crisis and the social and economic collapse, to fulfill a dream of generations - and bring us and for us, in excellent timing, with your own hands, your instructions and leadership, the agreements, each one historical, with the Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, Kharat al-Tank [‘Garbage Neighborhood’ - once the name of a Jerusalem neighborhood - OH] and all the rest. The emperor. Those who are going to ruin salute you.
Peace agreements with Sudan: a stamp of justification for Netanyahu's political strategy (Zalman Shoval, Maariv) We must keep things in proportion, but the peace agreement that is being formed with Sudan is another milestone in the global media's declaration that Israel during Netanyahu's time Israel became a regional power.
Five Muslim countries queuing (Smadar Perry, Yedioth Hebrew) Morocco is waiting, with Oman it looks like a closed deal, Qatar is playing on two pitches, Niger may surprise and the Saudis are cheering from the sidelines. Who will sign agreements with Israel?…It should be remembered: this is ostensibly the most serious case of government corruption in the history of the country. More than that: compared to cases of government corruption in security procurement, this appears to be the largest in the world in terms of financial scope. This is the first case in the history of Israel in which the people involved and their immediate environment belong to the highest levels of the state, the very end of the government pyramid. It is essential to understand and clarify to the public what exactly happened, whether - and to what extent - security criminal offenses were committed, what their severity was, and how they were committed, and by whom. And everything said here, of course - allegedly…Why did Attorney General Avichai Mendelblitt reduce the investigation and retroactively exclude the head of the governmental system, whose immediate environment was suspected and investigated? Why did he add and exclude from it the chapter of the Penal Code that deals with criminal offenses on state security?…
Days of unconditional Saudi support of PA are over (Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, Israel Hayom) The Wall Street Journal reported that the Saudi royal family is divided on the potential embrace of Israel. On one side, King Salman seems to maintain the Saudi traditional pro-Palestinian posture; on the other, ambitious Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is eager to reform Saudi foreign policy. Earlier this month, the crown prince received a boost from the shrewdest diplomat in the kingdom: Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
5 differences between the agreements with Sudan and the Emirates (Amos Yadlin, Yedioth/Ynet Hebrew) In contrast to the rapid and warm peace with the principalities, normalization with the Khartum will be a cold and slow process. Its value is mainly in Israel's diplomatic momentum vis - à - vis the Arab world.
Another Israeli-Arab Peace Deal? No Wonder the Applause Is Less Exuberant (B. Michael, Haaretz+) Peace with Abu Dhabi? Fine. There’s a glittering mall there. Elegant people dressed in snowy white robes. Hotels with lots of faucets and carpets. Modest beaches. It’s certainly worth a squadron of F-35s. Maybe they’re a bit too religious, but that’s not so terrible; we’ll get over it. And the deal with them will provide Israeli guests with an educational example of what they can expect when the likes of MK Bezalel Smotrich and Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky are in power here, too. Peace with Bahrain? That already elicited a bit of a yawn. Ultimately, it’s just more of the same, except with an island, a water park and a zoo. And now Sudan? That’s already a real joke. This is a country that doesn’t even have a government – just military rule and a “civil administration.”…The genocide in Darfur continues even today, albeit at a “low intensity.” In July, there were once again reports of dozens of people murdered, hundreds of houses torched and thousands of people displaced. But there’s a “normalization agreement” with Israel. And in fact, that makes sense. For what could be more logical than a “normalization agreement” between two insane countries?…
Never before have so many people worked together to bury such a serious case (Adv. Gilad Sher and Prof. Uzi Arad, Yedioth Hebrew) The submarines and naval vessels affair raises many difficult questions and, no less, investigations that have not been done. So who harmed Israel's national security and why was it not probed? This is not a case of "Yes Bibi, no Bibi.”
The Palestinians: 100 years of lawlessness (Dan Schueftan, Israel Hayom) If the Palestinian national movement had not been addicted to terrorism and violence and blind to historical processes, they could have had an independent state decades ago.
What's behind Egyptian President Sissi's sudden burst of generosity? (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) The recent release from prison of popular satirist Shady Abu Zeid and other activists may stem from Cairo's mounting fears of a possible Trump defeat at the polls next week.
Turkey Doesn't Have the Economic Bite to Back Up Erdogan's Bark (David Rosenberg, Haaretz+) It’s one thing for Erdogan to make threats and dispatch troops, it’s another to pay for it and provide them with advanced weaponry. Turkey doesn’t have the latter.
The Middle East favors Trump (Prof. Eyal Zisser, Israel Hayom) The Trump administration's efforts to curb Iran's aspirations in the Middle East have enjoyed the support of the region's rulers. Is it any wonder the ayatollahs are losing sleep over the possibility of four more years? 
If the dealer from the White House goes home (Former Foreign Ministry deputy director and head of N. America department, Baruch Bina, Ynet Hebrew) …We will soon know if the aversion to Trump has overcome the hatred towards the elites. For us in Israel, a Trump victory will leave the situation more or less as it is, with peace agreements with countries we have never fought against and a continuation of a dead end with real rivals. Trump is seen as Israel's ultimate friend, but he also isolates us from the Western community to which we belong. Biden's victory, however, may reboot our international position. Even if Biden wins, it is unlikely that we will see an emergency halt and a U-turn on issues such as the relocation of the US embassy to Tel Aviv or the conditioning of aid to Israel in changing Israeli policy toward Palestinians and settlements. However, a democratic victory can be a defining moment of Israel's return to reality. For the past four years, we have become addicted to a one-of-a-kind hallucinogenic drug, called a Trumpfoline, and it is likely that when the dealer no longer sits in the White House, Israel will go through a rehab process. Biden and his deputy Kamala Harris are friends of Israel, but have not sworn allegiance to any whim of the settlers, and in any case the Democratic Party also has opponents of Israel. If he wins, Biden, like Trump and Obama before him, will strive to reduce US international involvement, but he will not do so in frightened abandonment. Last April, he wrote that the US should lead again in coordination with its allies. His victory is expected to bring the United States back to the Climate treaty, the nuclear deal (in an upgraded way) with Iran and the Palestinian issue. It is likely that the United States under his leadership will continue to protect Israel at the UN, but not in the automatic way in which Trump acted. So whoever thought, under the influence of a Trumpfoline overdose, that the world could be ignored - is likely to wake up with the hangover of "Bar Ilan 2 Speech." Oh, yes. About three-quarters of the influential American Jewish community are Democrats, and have always assisted Israel in its dealings with the Democratic government and Congress. Will this also be the case under the Biden administration? Maybe. And maybe not. It is a pity that we did not remember the importance of the connection with them before the abolition of the outline of the Western Wall and the transformation of Israel into a theocratic and unenlightened state. Really thank you, Bibi.
If Biden and Democrats Win, Netanyahu Morphs From Asset to Liability (Chemi Shalev, Haaretz+) Prime Minister Netanyahu will become the greatest obstacle to recalibrating U.S.-Israel ties.
*Simply beloved (Boaz Bismuth, Israel Hayom) Despite the media portrayal of Trump's supporters as bigoted, shallow, and stupid, they are nothing more than Americans and members of their community who love their country and think Trump is one of the greatest presidents in history.
Big Brother, Special Coronavirus Edition (Haaretz Editorial) Under cover of a bill to increase fines for violating the coronavirus restrictions, the cabinet unveiled draft legislation Saturday night that would allow the police to access information gathered during epidemiological investigations and use it in criminal investigations. Even though existing legislation says that information gathered during contact tracing operations will be stored exclusively in the Health Ministry’s databases and not be used for anything other than preventing the virus from spreading, the proposed amendment would grant police the authority to obtain this information if it is needed in a criminal investigation, even if the investigation is completely unrelated to the coronavirus. This bill is a new, dangerous stage on a slippery slope in which the state is accumulating ever more draconian powers to monitor its citizens and infringe on their privacy, all while sheltering under the broad wings of the “battle against the pandemic.”

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