News Nosh 01.02.15


APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday January 2, 2015

Quote of the day:
"Corruption is when a politician uses public funds to deliver pistachio ice cream to his home and transfer garden furniture to his Caesarea villa, then requests that the expenses be covered for the water in his pool and fights to get a private jet."
--Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid launches a personal attack on the Prime Minister.**


Front Page:
Haaretz
Yedioth Ahronoth
Maariv Weekend (Hebrew links only)
  • In a realistic place // Ben Caspit
  • The rift deepens: Netanyahu did not invite Lieberman to the emergency meeting
  • Between Deri and Yishai: Ahead of the decision over the fate of Shas
  • Smart over the strong: MK Ilan Gilon plans to continue to work vigorously
  • Doesn’t apologize: The voters’ event of MK Ayelet Shaked
  • Lapid: “They (the corrupt) are stealing our country”
  • After one week: Ayala regained consciousness (after being seriously injured in firebomb attack)
  • Eti Alon affair: Why did the man who kept the embezzled funds remain free
  • Purity of arms: This is how the sanctity of the operational investigation of the IDF
  • The Angola affair: The full story of the diamond mines of Lebayev
  • ISIS hot: Why the war on the ‘Islamic State’ is failing // Tal Bashan
  • We are here: Special documentation of the symbol of the (settlement) outposts, Havat Gilad
  • Painful song: (Singer) Boaz Sharabi calls on the right-wing to wake up
Israel Hayom
  • Netanyahu: ”We have a winning team”
  • Israel vs. Palestinian Authority: “We expect the International Criminal Court at The Hague to reject the hypocritical request”
  • Special badge of honor to be awarded to participants of Operation Protective Edge
  • The rhino operation – returning 3 rhinos who took a walk outside the Ramat Gan Safari and got as far as the parking lot
  • Likely: ‘Pri Hagalil’ factory to be reopened Sunday
  • New year opens with a storm: “Next week – snow in Jerusalem”
  • Theater of the absurd of Shas: Who is the good? Who is the bad? Who is the loyal? Who is the subversive one? // Yehuda Shelzinger and Mati Tuchfeld
  • Deep in the ground: Decades, millions of shekels – and the new cemetery of Gush Dan is not yet established

News Summary:
The newly elected Likud party list and the Palestinian request to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague were the top stories in the Friday Hebrew newspapers. The papers noted that Likud’s list is almost without women and without new names and that the radicals, such as the religious MKs who fought for Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, Moshe Feiglin and Tzipi Hotovely, were pushed out. However, one made her way near the top: Miri Regev got fifth place. Likud named her the ‘First Lady.’ Haaretz+ wrote that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who won 75% of the votes for the top seat, is none too pleased about having Regev on the list. However, Netanyahu was pleased with the list, which he said was ‘balanced and responsible.’ 

**Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid gave what is being called his ‘corruption speech,’ in which he made a personal attack on Netanyahu for transferring money to isolated West Bank settlements and using “public funds to deliver pistachio ice cream to his home and transfer garden furniture to his Caesarea villa, then requests that the expenses be covered for the water in his pool and fights to get a private jet.”
 
Netanyahu demanded that the ICC dismiss out of hand the Palestinian request to join calling it ‘hypocritical’ “since the Palestinian Authority is not a state..(it) is an entity that maintains an alliance with a terrorist organization, Hamas, which commits war crimes.” Netanyahu vowed a tough response to the Palestinian move and convened an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the issue (to which he did not invite Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman). Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responded: "They attack us and our land every day, to whom are we to complain?," Abbas said on Wednesday. "The Security Council let us down -- where are we to go?" Abbas signed the papers, but the Palestinians have not yet submitted the paperwork. Senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi said there were no immediate plans to lodge a formal complaint at the ICC, but that Abbas' move was "a clear signal to Israel and the international community that Israel must cease and desist its war crimes, especially settlements." That said, Haaretz+ reported that a Palestinian source said that Abbas asked the ICC to probe 'Israeli war crimes' since June 2014, the period since the day three Israeli teens were kidnapped and killed in the West Bank, which includes the Gaza war.

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