APN's daily news review from Israel

Thursday January 29, 2015

Quote of the day:

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Front Page:

Haaretz

• Officer and soldier killed on northern border from Hezbollah anti-tank missile
• Limited explosion // Amos Harel
• Don’t generate a war // Ari Shavit
• When one’s honor has been hurt // Amir Oren
• The limits of dialogue of violence // Zvi Bar’el
• No logic // Tal Niv
• Sara Netanyahu returned thousands of shekels to the State after she took the revenue for (returning) bottles of the Prime Minister’s Residence
• Negotiations renewed between (Shas leader) Yishai and (radical right-wing leader, Michael) Ben-Ari
• Netanyahu’s candidates slated to realistic spots: Dr. Anat Berko and Dr. Limor Samimian-Darash
• Channel 10 poll: Lieberman on edge of threshold (will barely make it into Knesset)
• UN began campaign to release thousands of child-soldiers in South Sudan.
• 55,000-year-old skull – found in Israel

• Hezbollah’s revenge – First Sergeant Dor Haim Nini, 20, and Major Yochai Kalnagel, 25, killed in barrage of rockets on convoy of unarmored vehicles
• The Containers Ltd. // Nahum Barnea on how the leaders in government don’t really want to go to war, despite their rhetoric
• Our mistakes // Alex Fishman
• Know your enemy // Yossi Yehoshua.
• Yochai, my friend // Captain Ziv Shilon

• After the revenge: Israel is trying to prevent escalation – Two combat soldiers killed from Hezbollah fire.
• Yochai left a pregnant wife and one-year-old baby behind; Dor text-messaged his girlfriend two hours before his death: “You are the love of my life”
• Dialogue with fire // Eliezar Merom
• Go back to the guidelines // Ran Adelist
• Despite the elections - Stop, people have rights // Adv. Yechiel Gotman
• Former Mossad chief (Meir) Dagan: “Netanyahu is leading us to a bi-national state and the end of the Zionist dream”
• Because of the suspicions in the (sexual) harassment affair: Israel Police Commissioner dismissed his deputy, Commander Nissim Mor

• Front in the north – 2 soldiers killed
• Change the disc on the northern border // Yoav Limor.
• Despite the pain: Choose quiet // Dan Margalit.
• Nasrallah doesn’t want another war // Prof. Eyal Zisser
• Following the suspicions: Police Commissioner fired his deputy
• Getting closer to the polling stations: Today is last day to submit party lists; Battle over letters that are left

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News Summary:
Today’s Hebrew papers focused on the Hezbollah attack on an IDF military convoy (in civilian vehicles) yesterday that killed two soldiers and they all agreed: it was revenge for the Israeli attack on a Hezbollah-Iran military convoy in the Syrian Golan last week. Maariv and Ynet reported that former Mossad chief Meir Dagan sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, saying he did not trust him, he believed Netanyahu’s problems with the White House will cost Israel dearly and that Netanyahu's policies are leading to the end of the Zionist dream. Meanwhile, 
none of the papers with the exception of Haaretz reported on the damning report on the Gaza War by the Israeli human rights organization, Btselem, which found that the IDF broke international law in its bombing of homes in which more than 70% of the people those killed were civilians.**
 
Hezbollah struck 11:30 Wednesday morning firing an anti-tank missile at the IDF convoy. Two soldiers were killed and seven were lightly to moderately wounded. Those that escaped told about how they evacuated themselves from the vehicles that were hit. The IDF returned fire with a heavy artillery barrage, following which Hezbollah mortars were fired at Mt. Hermon and IDF posts on Mt. Dov. At around 1:20pm, the IDF renewed its bombardment, with the IAF hitting a Hezbollah target in Lebanon and killing a Spanish UN peacekeeper. 
 
The Israeli papers asked how did Hezbollah know that soldiers were traveling inside civilian vehicles and why weren’t those vehicles armored. They wanted to know whether it really necessary for the soldiers to travel in that area of the border near Lebanon during such a tense period.

What most of the analysts and commentators agreed on was that Israel should not respond disproportionately, as Israeli military strategy holds. Instead, Israel should try to maintain quiet. (See Commentary/Analysis below.) The papers noted that Hezbollah said the operation concluded the ‘eye-for-an-eye’ [although six Hezbollah fighters and six Iranian military men were killed in the convoy Israel attacked – OH] and that it was not interested in escalating the situation anymore. However, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel should respond in a 'forceful and disproportionate manner.' Netanyahu said the perpetrators would pay the full price. Zionist Camp party co-leader Tzipi Livni said Israel will hit back ‘harshly.’ However, Hezbollah said it launched its attack from beyond the Blue Line – an area which is in dispute - so that Israel won't have international legitimacy for a broad-scale retaliation.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah faces internal criticism from the fear that Israel will make war against Lebanon. But Palestinian political parties gathered in support of Hezbollah in Gaza. Israel's tourism industry is now bracing for the fallout from the fighting in the north with visitors canceling trips to Upper Galilee and foreign airlines are concerned about their safety.

Quick Hits:

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Commentary/Analysis:

For now, Hezbollah's response seems calculated and limited (Amos Harel, Haaretz+) The Lebanese organization avoids opening new fronts, while Israel too, it seems, is not interested in an all-out war. 
Wanted: A general of peace (Giora Inbar, Yedioth/Ynet) The only general who should be given a secured spot in the ruling party is one who can end the occupation. A responsible leadership has no right to exist if it is incapable of using Israel's military strength to reach an agreement that will guarantee peace and security.
Israelis are paying the price 
of a showcase operation (Haaretz Editorial) Israelis should ask themselves whether the Syria strike justified the loss of the soldiers killed in the retaliatory attack, or the new hostilities with Hezbollah and Iran.
For both Israel and Hezbollah, calm works for now (Ron Ben-Yishai, Ynet) Hezbollah is not in a position to carry out a massive revenge attack for the killing of its senior officials on the Golan last week, and in Israel, political considerations take center stage.
Israelis, say no to another war (Tal Niv, Haaretz+) Can Israel allow itself these drums of war? The funerals? The sirens? The forces deployed across the border?
Dialogue with fire - Israel must act against Hezbollah with it’s head (Eliezer Merom, Maariv) A balanced and measured response will guarantee Israel's interests and bring calm to the north. A broad and inflammatory response may lead to an escalation that is not necessary at this time.
Israel must hold off the (inevitable) third Lebanon war (Ari Shavit, Haaretz+) In the last 40 years no Israeli leader got out of any war as a glorious victor.
Obama is heading for a bad deal (Boaz Bismuth, Israel Hayom) The problem is we are now closer to a bad deal with Iran than to no deal. So Netanyahu's visit to Congress is more urgent than ever.
Silence and a wink obscure what's really happening in Golan right now (Yossi Klein, Haaretz+) The generals and the politicians collaborate with the media, and we are denied the basic right to know true motives behind periodic confrontations. 
Why the Iran speech to Congress is Netanyahu’s biggest blunder yet (Peter Beinart, Haaretz) By blatantly dissing Obama, Bibi is endangering his support among the 'Jacksonians' who support Israel the most.
Should Netanyahu address Congress?‎ (Isi Leibler, Israel Hayom) Far from intervening in U.S. domestic politics, Netanyahu considers it his sacred task to ‎seek to prevent a global catastrophe and an existential threat to his people.
Israel's ambassador to the U.S. is planting a rotten seed (Alan Elsner, Haaretz+) In cozying up to the Republican Congress, Ron Dermer is serving Netanyahu at the expense of Israeli citizens. 
When gossip columns reach the Knesset (Sima Kadmon, Yedioth/Ynet) A long list of worthy people with political orientation, ideology and good intentions will not make it into Israel's legislative body because of party leaders' pathetic competition over who will recruit the most famous name for their list. 
To defeat Netanyahu, Zionist Camp must play dirty (Uri Misgav, Haaretz+) Israel has a Tea Party too: Likud and Habayit Hayehudi. Why aren't Herzog and Livni doing more to keep them from winning the election?
Anecdote-filled Obituary for David Landau by former reporter (Greer Fay Cashman, Jerusalem Post) My first meeting with David Landau was in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War only a few months after I had made aliya.  Together with other journalists we were both in a van supplied by the Government Press Office that was taking us towards the Suez Canal.  We left Jerusalem soon after midnight and reached the desert just before dawn.  Landau demanded that the driver stop and wait for him.  Almost everyone in the van presumed that he needed to respond to a call of nature. 
Farewell to David Landau, who would have hated this headline (Ami Kaufman, +972mag) My first encounter with David was my interview for an internship at Haaretz. I’ll never forget his first words to me as I entered his office:
“Well, that’s a horrible shirt to wear to an interview.”
In retrospect, it was. 
Stop, a legal right is before you (Adv. Yechiel Gotman, Maariv) Detaining someone until the end of proceedings, before a trial is conducted, violates democracy, but also is an unavoidable necessity, so it should be used proportionately, sparingly and with great care. And that iswhat the legislature ordered and what the High Court has instructed in its rulings. However, surprisingly, the Israeli police did not really internalize this message, it appears.
It took leaving Israel to stop running from the Holocaust (Asher Schechter, Haaretz+) In Israel I never thought too much about the Holocaust. You don’t need to - it’s everywhere you look. Then I moved to New York.
 

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