APN's daily news review from Israel

Thursday January 8, 2015

Quote of the day:

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Front Page:

Haaretz

• Ten journalists and two policemen killed in terror attack at French magazine that published caricatures of (the Prophet) Mohammed
• I’m scared // Amos Biderman, Haaretz cartoonist
• Symbolically, this is France’s 9/11 // Dov Alfon
• France’s challenge: Fight terror without losing the Muslims // Sefi Hendler
• The attack awakens Europe’s old ghosts // Amos Harel
• The double nightmare of the security services // Anshel Pfeffer
• Barak to Haaretz: Netanyahu’s charm is over, he is passive and being dragged (Hebrew)
• Tens of thousands disconnected from electricity; Blizzard weakens today, tomorrow the snow will start again
• Israel has 8 times more specialist doctors than the Palestinian Authority (Hebrew)
• Danino: Solid evidentiary basis in the Yisrael Beiteinu affair (Hebrew)
• Waiting for Herzog // Ari Shavit

• Terror against freedom of speech – France’s 9/11
• War of the worlds // Sever Plocker
• It's jihad, not Islam - Fight against jihad // Ben-Dror Yemini
• The Muslim occupation // Eitan Haber
• This is just the beginning // Noah Klieger
• White moment: Mt. Hermon covered in 90cm of snow, but Jerusalem was disappointed, only a thin layer

• State in a storm (photos)
• Terror in Paris

• Massacre in Paris – Terror from home: French brothers of Algerian descent avenged the honor of (the Prophet) Muhammad
• France’s September 11 // Boaz Bismuth
• We are all in mourning // Caroline Dellage in Paris
• The blizzard, chapter 1 – 17,000 families without electricity
• Complaining, in every situation // Yehuda Safra
• Where isn’t there school today – the full list
• Wife of Tomer Mahloug: “A crazy man shot my husband because of a 2000 shekel debt to the town”
• Attorney General Weinstein: Probe the entanglement of Bank Leumi in the tax evasion in the US

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News Summary:
There were practically only two stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers: the attack in Paris and the blizzard in Israel.
 
After masked gunmen opened fire inside the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which made fun of the Prophet Mohammed, and killed 12 people, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu linked the assault to the violence faced by Israel from Hezbollah and Hamas: “I stood at the UN podium a few months ago, and I said that if the terrorist fanatics of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic State and al-Qaeda will not be stopped here, [the attacks] will spread all over the world…” [However, Israel’s conflicts with Hezbollah and Hamas are over land and not over religious insults and the freedom of speech – OH]. Netanyahu said if "civilized societies" would “stand together and if we are not divided, then we can defeat this tyranny that seeks to extinguish all our freedoms." He also said all Israelis “feel for the people of France and for the grieving families." Israeli commentators discussed the attacks at length. (See Commentary/Analysis below. Maariv's Gideon Kotz writes about the Jewish cartoonist who was killed.) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, referring to it as ‘terror,’ and said it was a “heinous crime that is in contradiction of religion and morality." The Israeli newspapers did not mention that.
 
The Israeli newspapers reported at length about the snow that hit the country, however there was almost no mention about the difficulties Gazans face due to the high number of homeless and the minimal amount of electricity in the Gaza Strip, following last summer’s war and the limitations to fuel imports from Israel’s siege. Yedioth made no mention, but Ynet did report on the toll of the blizzard on Arabs in neighboring countries. Maariv’s printed paper reported on the troubles faced by Syrians in Syria and in refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, but only it’s website article discussed at length the floods in Gaza and the evacuations of families from their homes as well as the preparations by the Palestinian Authority in high altitude cities such as Hebron. UN officials were worried over the winter storm’s effect on Syrian refugees in Lebanon, as well, Haaretz reported. Maan gave a report on how “Palestine shuts down as Storm Huda strikes Holy Land.” Maan reported that a Palestinian baby died in Tulkarem from a house fire that broke out from an electric heater and that fires were reported in three other Palestinian towns.

Quick Hits:

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Features:

The quiet boycott: When Israeli art is out
A conference held today at Tel Aviv’s Leyvik House will explore the impact of the BDS movement on the country’s contemporary art scene. (Shany Littman, Haaretz+) 
How exactly does the International Criminal Court work – and should Israel be worried?
Having been accepted to the ICC, the Palestinian Authority can file war crimes complaints against Israel after 60 days. (Haaretz+)
Don’t blame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for Muslim anti-Semitism in France
In his book, “Muslims and Jews in France: History of a Conflict,” Historian Maud Mandel argues that attacks against Jews by Muslims from Parisian suburbs hearken back to the way France departed its colonies in North Africa. (Haaretz+)
The economics at the heart of Israel's illegal settlements 
It's a weekday in the West Bank settlement of Ariel. Students share a cigarette break on the university campus. Two women walking their dogs chatter in Russian-accented Hebrew. Nothing suggests this is anything other than an ordinary Israeli town. But while it is not known for a strong ideological bent or violent attacks on its Palestinian neighbours, jutting out some 16km east of the Green Line that divides Israel from the Occupied West Bank, this town of 19,000 is very much a settlement. Of all the hurdles to peace negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, perhaps the largest is the 150 or so Israeli settlements in the West Bank. (IRIN, Maan)

Commentary/Analysis:

Don’t prosecute MK Zoabi (Haaretz Editorial) It seems the AG hastened to intervene in issues that should be left to the public’s judgment, or at best to the Knesset Ethics Committee.
Paris shooting won’t garner European sympathy for Israel (Amos Harel, Haaretz+) Europe is becoming increasingly vulnerable to terror attacks, but anyone who thinks Europeans will now feel we are all in the same boat is liable to be disappointed. 
A single Knesset slate for Israel’s most threatened population (Amira Hass, Haaretz+) If these were ordinary times, the ideological differences among Israel's Arab parties would have constituted a good reason to run separately. But these aren't ordinary times.
What’s missing is an Israeli party (Salman Masalha, Haaretz+) Israel’s decent Jewish citizens should vote only for parties that publicly state that Arab MKs must be part of any future government coalition.
Herzog’s mission: Give Israelis a concrete plan for hope (Ari Shavit, Haaretz) The Zionist Camp leader must devise a peace initiative if he wants to win the election.
Israel's residents are entitled to answers about Gaza war (Yuval Diskin, Yedioth/Ynet) The political echelon appears to be sweeping the difficult questions about Operation Protective Edge under the rug. Some of these questions point to problematic discretion and serious flaws in the decision making process, says former Shin Bet chief.
Orphaned war crimes, coming back to haunt us (Gideon Levy, Haaretz+) To ask a politician if he smoked grass if fine, but to ask if he bore any responsibility for a massacre is forbidden. 
WATCH: 'Prospect of ICC charges threatens Israelis more than Palestinians' (Aeyal Gross, Haaretz+) Aeyal Gross, professor of law at Tel Aviv University, explains how the ICC will likely handle charges brought against Israelis and Palestinians, and whether joining the body will help or hinder the latter's efforts to achieve a state. 
The prime minister who was responsible for nothing (Sima Kadmon, Yedioth/Ynet) After leading Israel's government for six years, Netanyahu wants us to believe that the good things other people did are his doing, while the bad things that he did are everyone else's fault. 
The men who came to dinner with Bibi (Eytan Avriel, Haaretz+) It’s time for Netanyahu to come clean about what exactly he discussed with business leaders behind closed doors.
Netanyahu flies flag of governance (Aviad Kleinberg, Yedioth/Ynet) What's good for Netanyahu, thinks Netanyahu, is good for the Jews. It's not a matter of self-interest, of course. It's a national interest. The prime minister desperately wants to continue to govern us not for his sake but for ours.
Rampant corruption is an existential threat to Israeli democracy (Chemi Shalev, Haaretz+) 19th century economist Henry George: In a corrupt democracy, the best sink to the bottom, the worst float to the top; the vile are ousted only by the viler.
Outposts of moderation in Jerusalem (Elisheva Mazya, Ynet) If the Zionism of the past came in the form of radical terrorist groups, the new Jewish pioneering enterprise is moderation. Yes, it is less glamorous – but it is the only thing that will save us. Those who view moderation as a value should move to Jerusalem, and shape the reality themselves. Only when I was paying did it occur to me just how normal it was for me to do my shopping in the heart of an Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem, a minute and a half after the "third intifada." 
What if parents raised kids the way Bibi and Sara run Israel? (Bradley Burston, Haaretz+) The message they're modeling? Starve the Palestinians. Let the Gazans drown in sewage. Let the town of Hazor Glilit starve, as well. Let Kibbutz Nirim defend itself. Let settlers stone U.S. diplomats. This is our home. No consequences for us. 
Don't take political Islam lightly (Zalman Shoval, Israel Hayom) As the threat of political Islam grows, the next prime minister of Israel will face tasks of unprecedented importance. 
The Paris massacre: The double nightmare of Western intelligence (Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz+) French jihadists have gone on shooting sprees before, but this time the killers were professionals. 
France attacks are jihad's doing, not Islam's (Ben-Dror Yemini, Yedioth/Ynet) Millions of Muslims have nothing to do with terror but hundreds of thousands support jihad, suicide bombings and even the Islamic State. So what can Europe do about it?
Paris attack shows that the bad guys have won (Amos Biderman, Haaretz+) Haaretz's cartoonist Amos Biderman is afraid after the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that killed 12. 
War between barbarism and culture (Gideon Kotz in Paris, Maariv) The terrorists killed a whole generation of top satirists and caricaturists. Georges Wolinski, 80 years old when he died on the battlefield, the son of Polish Jews, who after many years at the communist "L'humanite,’" where he became known for his provocative paintings that included large-breasted women, found in recent years his Jewishness and inserted it as a motif in his paintings and satirical writings. At a party where we met, with good drinks as he liked, at an elite restaurant, with the release of his new book, his hero, a Jew named "Hanukkah Harry,” the Saviour of the world, he said to me: "We Jews always manage to get into trouble in all the problems." Yesterday he was not murdered as a Jew, even if the killers wanted to know "Who is Wolinsky" before he was shot, but as a journalist who died on the altar of democracy and freedom of speech, the words of President Netherlands. But the Jews had already gone through this before. "The Jews have paid up to now the heaviest price," Imam Shalgumi, head of the Council of Jewish-Muslim Friendship, told me. He does not to go anywhere without a bodyguard. "They killed Jews in Toulouse and Brussels. It is time to stop with this complacency….” 
The guilt industry complex (Dror Eydar, Israel Hayom) For leftist groups, Israel was born from sin and has no right to defend itself, so every IDF operation is suspect from the outset.
Will the Charlie Hebdo attack bring France out of its corner in the war on Islamist terror? (Seth Lipsky, Haaretz+) And how will the free press feel, after it supported Edward Snowden or Julian Assange, if it discovers that closer state surveillance could have foreseen the Paris massacre?
The Yisrael Beytenu swamp (Dan Margalit, Israel Hayom) If the suspicions about Yisrael Beytenu prove to be true, then what we are talking about here is Dirty Money, Inc. 
**Revenge of the puppet (Jacky Khougy, Maariv) What prompted the Palestinian Authority to initiate the petition to join the International Criminal Court in The Hague and how does it relate to Abbas being a heavy smoker? Several reasons together led the Palestinian Authority to initiate the petition to The Hague. The first was born in the Gaza Strip. Four months have passed since the war and Ramallah sees how Israel somehow has managed to escape from having to answer for the enormous destruction and the extent of the killings that it left, and how Goldstone did not make a peep, and how the pictures of dead Gazan children are dissolving in a sea of horrors comes out of Syria and Iraq. The Palestinian street is also pressing the leaders for a breakthrough. The ordinary citizen wants to travel freely on the roads, to work his land comfortably, to visit a relative in Gaza and to work in Israel. Most of them are law-abiding people who are convinced that violence brings destruction upon them. And yet, they do not get any benefits to their lives or a promising future for their children. It was hard to step into their shoes as they watched the images from the Gaza Strip during Operation Protective Edge or after the burning to death of the boy Mohammed Abu Khdeir from Shuafat (E. Jerusalem). It's hard to be a farmer who discovers that vandals cut down his olive trees, on which his livelihood depends since childhood. What does the Palestinian citizen get after all this? A President who preserves the peace with Israel. The right-wing and the settlers accuse him of being a terrorist and inciting terrorist attacks, but Mahmoud Abbas is the most moderate of leaders that has been produced the Palestinian national movement. Any IDF Civil Administration officer and Shin Bet employee will tell you that the Palestinian Authority (PA) security services are cooperating closely with the IDF and the Shin Bet in pursuit of the military wing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The Palestinian public is aware of this, and few see it positively. Abbas'...hands were tied. Aside from the oxygen he breathes, Israel controls almost everything: chunks of the budget of the PA, and some of its fuel for the power supply. Even to go out to visit his friend, the Jordanian king, Abbas needs permission from the Israeli army. And here, even in a request to the International Court to file a lawsuit against Israel for disproportionate use of force against civilians, the PA finds it difficult to carry out. Israel stood on its hind legs, and with American backing made a reprisal against the PA's public coffers. Ramallah is currently exploring the way out of the bush and thinking of turning again to the UN Security Council to request a declaration of the end of the occupation. The composition of the Security Council changed on 1 January, and two friendly countries joined it: Venezuela and Malaysia. They may tip the scales in its favor. How does this relate to The Hague? In his nine-year presidency, Abbas sought to achieve peace, but was pushed away every time. The man is 80 years old, a heavy smoker and has few years left waiting for him in his chair, if at all. In the reality of a far-off peace, in which you depend like a puppet on the goodwill of Big Brother, all you have left is to bark, and perhaps to exact a price on Big Brother's image. The PA believes that the Mark of Cain by the court in The Hague is an appropriate Palestinian revenge. If the case does not end in conviction, at least the PA will have enjoyed the media buzz. Every headline, they hope, will serve as a small indictment against Israel, and will also remind everyone that the old man is working hard.

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