APN's daily news review from Israel

Wednesday December 31, 2014

Number of the day:

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Front Page:

Haaretz

• Defeat for Abbas: Proposal to end occupation rejected in UN Security Council.
• Today primaries in Likud: Netanyahu will try to stop radicalization of list
• The rabbinical council of chaos // Yossi Verter
• 2014 in review
• At the Company for the Development of Samaria, they documented the transfer of hundreds of thousands (of shekels) to Lieberman’s people
• New HMO medicine basket: 1/3 of the additional budget will be allotted to jaundice, medicine for Parkinsons won’t be paid for
• Channel 10 concession to end at midnight: License through a quick procedure or darkening the screen

• The resignation “It’s hard for me, but I have no choice,” said Shas leader Aryeh Deri after he submitted his resignation from the Knesset to the Speaker
• Failure for the Palestinians at the UN
• Lieberman goes out to battle – Attacks Likud (“It wasn’t I who withdrew from Hebron and Gush Katif”) and the police
• Today: Likud chooses its list
• Channel 10 was temporarily saved from closure: The decision was postponed for another six months
• Price of gasoline drops

• “They won’t beat me” – Avigdor Lieberman went out to battle against the law enforcement agencies
• Lieberman against the world // Ben Caspit
• Israel vs. the Palestinians: A tense day at the UN Security Council
• Deri resigned from the Knesset; Yishai: “They turned me into a traitor” – Also the rest of Shas’ MKs asked to resign
• The critical day for Channel 10 – Employees: “It’s not the debt that worries the government, it’s the criticism”
• Captain Goldin affair: Is his body really in the hands of Hamas?

• Deri resigns from the Knesset; Yishai: “They turned the tables”
• Today primaries in Likud – 96,000 members to vote on chairman, the Knesset list and approval of two reserved spots for the PM
• Shas deserves a different leadership // Dan Margalit.
• Shas’ theater // Yehuda Shelzinger
• “It’s not the Yisrael Beiteinu affair, it’s the Lahav 433 (investigative police unit) affair” – Lieberman attacked the police at the opening campaign
• Tonight at midnight (1): We’ll receive the new calendar year with a kiss
• Tonight at midnight (2): Price of gasoline to drop by 63 agorot to 6.27 shekels a liter

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News Summary:
Lieberman went to battle against the police, the leader of the Shas party resigned from the Knesset leaving the party in chaos the Palestinians went to the UN – and lost their battle to end the occupation by 2017 making top stories in the Hebrew newspapers today as Likud members go to the voting polls and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is concerned about the radicalization of the party’s Knesset list. And Ynet’s military affairs reporter, Yoav Zeitun, gets audio material from Black Friday – the day that the army used massive fire in a Palestinian  when it was looking for a kidnapped soldier.

The Palestinians failed to get the nine votes needed to pass their UN Security Council resolution proposal, meaning the US did not have to veto it and thereby isolate itself. Eight countries voted in favor: Jordan – which submitted the proposal on behalf of the Palestinians, Russia, France, China, Chad, Luxemburg, Argentina and Chile. Abstained: Rwanda, Nigeria, Lithuania and South Korea. United States and Australia voted against. US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, said the proposal was not constructive because “it sets arbitrary deadlines for reaching a peace agreement and for Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank, and those are more likely to curtail useful negotiations than to bring them to a successful conclusion.” Most of the Israeli papers perceived this as a defeat for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. However, Haaretz’s Chemi Shalev noted that Power “also made a point of reiterating Barack Obama’s statement of May 19, 2011 that the two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians will be based on ‘the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.’” That statement caused problems between Netanyahu and Obama. According to Shalev, this was a clear message to the Palestinians “that an understanding with Washington over a Security Council resolution was within their reach.” Maariv reported that the the inclusion in the proposal that E. Jerusalem would be the capital of the Palestinian state and that settlement blocs would not be annexed by Israel was considered 'extreme' by Israeli sources in Jerusalem. Both Israel’s Foreign and Defense ministers reacted to the vote saying that Palestinian unilateralism achieves nothing and attempts at delegitimizing Israel only make the situation worse.
 
Rafah's 'Black Friday' returned to the news with fascinating video and audio tapes of the effort by the Givati commanders and soldiers in the field to find missing Sec.-Lt. Hadar Goldin, which were exposed by Ynet’s military affairs reporter Yoav Zeitun. Both Haaretz’s Amos Harel and Maariv’s Ran Adelist write that the online posting of the videos documenting the August 1 battle in Rafah, during Operation Protective Edge last summer, “is not incidental” and may be related to the investigations of the Givati Brigade's actions that day, which resulted in the killing of between 130-150 Palestinians in the city. Adelist writes (See Commentary/Analysis) that the recordings are meant to show that the soldiers were under great duress and can’t be held responsible for casualties.

At the center of the controversy is the Hannibal Protocol, writes The Times of Israel's military correspondent, Mitch Ginsburg, who also notes that the partially censored recordings “come just as the IDF’s Military Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Dan Efroni, weighs whether or not to press criminal charges against Israeli soldiers involved in the deaths of several dozen Palestinians in Operation Protective Edge...Chiefly, he must determine whether or not the IDF violated the international rules of law with its response to the August 1, 2014 abduction of Lt. Hadar Goldin...” The commander of the Givati Brigade’s reconnaissance battalion, Lt. Col. Eli Gino, told Ynet in September: “I’m at peace with the orders I gave. The fire was proportionate, and when they kidnap a soldier, all means are kosher, even if it exacts a price.” 

Here is an abridged version of the recording, including English subtitles that starts with the commanding officer screaming at his forces to stop firing. The fascinating full piece that Ynet prepared is here.
  

Quick Hits:

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Features:

Painful baggage
Michael Levy had PTSD and received approval from the court to walk around his city, Beit Shaan, in a military uniform and ranks. In 2005, he described in a film about him (The story of a champion) about the difficulty in dealing with ridicule from his environment. Two weeks ago at age 51 he ended his nightmare life. (Maariv) 
**What did Israel's Foreign Ministry spend $66m on in 2014?
The ministry's spending on 'suppliers and consultants' for the year has been revealed - and it includes instant soup, beauty queen's and sarcophagi. (Haaretz+) 
2014 in photos: The pictures worth 1000 words in Israel
The photographs that captured the essence of 2014 in Israel. (Ynet)
 
Commentary/Analysis:

A Supreme Court justice’s naivete (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) In the state’s early years, Arab political participation ranged from 90 percent in 1955 to 82 percent in 1965. In the 1970s the percentage plummeted in direct proportion to the rise in their sense of alienation and exclusion. 
Investigate and learn lessons (Ran Adelist, Maariv) The incidents of August 1st, 2014, continue to follow those involved in the events on the outskirts of Rafah. The recordings of some of themoves were transferred to Ynet reporter Yoav Zeitun, as part of the battle over the narrative of that same incident. The recordings demonstrate the authenticity of the pressures that the soldiers in the field faced. The public, and the professionals that were given the tapes, have no way to understand what really happened, except the argument that was raised in the article itself by "Givati Brigade sources" that "the recordings show that the Division acted proportionately and under orders.”...A large part of the events involved in that Black Friday are contaminated with political influences, starting with the involvement of rabbis at the funeral of the kidnapped officer, and including external attempts to prevent an exhaustive investigation of the decision-making process of the brigade command. 
Generational battle on Israel's right (Ravit Hecht, Haaretz+) The Likud and Habayit Hayehudi, linked through the settlement umbilical cord, can be compared to two sisters. The Likud is the older, aging, and less desirable sister, while Hayabit Hayehudi is the sexy younger one. 
Where has Likud's liberalism gone? (Yoaz Hendel, Yedioth/Ynet) When Likud loses its ability to present itself as a liberal and pragmatic right-wing party, it loses its ability to govern, resulting in shaky coalitions.
Don’t be afraid of international institutions (Eli Avidar, Haaretz+) The Israeli government must deal with the claims of the international community as an active player.
Experimenting with our lives: The perils of electoral engineering (Gershom Gorenberg, Haaretz+) Raising the electoral threshold is another ill-considered change in election rules. Fiddling with the machinery of democracy rarely has the intended effect.
Mounting election turmoil (Isi Liebler, Israel Hayom) Hopefully, Israelis will avoid voting for the centrist parties whose leaders ‎seek to be kingmakers and determine the nature of the government based solely on personal ‎interests.‎
Israel needs an upheaval (Sefi Rachlevsky, Haaretz+) And an upheaval must have an historic, democratic and equitable foundation.
Journalist one day - politician the next. The trendiest career change in Israel raises some disturbing questions (Allison Kaplan Sommer, Haaretz+) Yinon Magal, editor-in-chief of popular news website Walla, is just the latest example of journalists-cum-politicos. Good or bad for politics, the trend is definitely bad for journalism.
Shining a spotlight on the consequences of U.S. betrayal (Seth Lipsky, Haaretz+) In 'Last Days in Vietnam,' JFK's niece takes a courageous look at how the long-ago deal with the communists went down. What an irony – or Godsend – that this film is being aired as America is tempted, yet again, into a pact with a calculating enemy, Iran. 
On democracy and hypocrisy (Dror Eydar, Israel Hayom) The same people who sought to close Israel Hayom are now wailing that closing Channel 10 would be "blow to democracy and free speech."
Without a Palestinian state, Israel can never be Jewish or democratic (Stephen Robert, Haaretz+) Israel’s policy of perpetual occupation is already causing an increase in animosity toward the Jewish people and their state. Perpetuating this policy fosters the beginning of an anti-Israel movement – from within and without the state – that will be difficult to reverse. 
Netanyahu's popularity to be tested in Likud primary (Jonathan Lis, Haaretz+) Benjamin Netanyahu a shoo-in to beat Danon, but not necessarily by an impressive margin.
Most influential Arab leader in 2014: ISIS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz+) In six months, al-Baghdadi turned the Islamic State from a little-known militia in Syria to a very threatening organization that dictates international policy.

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