News Nosh 01.01.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday January 1, 2016  
 
Number of the day:
8,462,000.
--Number of Israeli citizens on the eve of 2016, 21% are Arab, 3% are new immigrants.**


Front Page:
Haaretz
Yedioth Ahronoth
  • 2016 entered with a storm – snow at Mt. Hermon
  • (Sarah Netanyahu) 5 hours in interrogation
  • Yedioth Poll: Likud dropping, Lapid skyrocketing
  • Government 57 // Sima Kadmon
  • (Arab-Jewish romance novel) Not in our school
  • Maybe we should also stop studying the Torah // Amos Oz
  • Bar Refaeli’s surprise: “I’m pregnant”
  • The man on the wall // Nahum Barnea and Sima Kadmon on the rise and fall of Ehud Olmert
  • The station answers - Behind the playlist: Director of Army Radio explains for the first time
  • Poverty and you: Meir Zagori in a special column: Any one can become poor
  • Life from death – Amazing story of a bereaved parent who, after the death of her son, brought to the world a son from her husband and a granddaughter who was born from his sperm
  • 3 chapters from the book ('Borderlife') that is stirring up the country
Maariv Weekend (Hebrew links only)
Israel Hayom
  • Opening the year with a storm
  • Sara Netanyahu was interrogated: Denied the claims 
  • Taking off in her way (photo of female pilot finished course)
  • Welcome 2016!
  • The book was banned? Sales skyrocketed
  • Alertness of hotel workers prevented massive attack
  • Sunday: First indictments in Duma affair
  • For rainy weekend: Heritage sites under a roof
  • The Prosecution’s address - State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan is not scared of the radical right-wing
  • Tricks didn’t help him. High Court ruling determined: Olmert is a corrupt person // Mordechai Gilat, Uzi Dayan, Michal Shabbat

 
News Summary:
Storm and snow marked the New Year in Israel, the Education Minister gave a new reason for banning a Jewish-Arab romance novel from schools, and Sara Netanyahu denied allegations of improper expensing during five hours of questioning by police investigators making top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers on the first day of 2016. Meanwhile, polls revealed interesting facts about Israelis’ political views and security fears and more news on the suspects in the Duma arson-murders.
 
**Israel reached 8,462,000 citizens at the start of 2016, 21% of them Arab and some 3% of them new immigrants, mostly from France, Ukraine and Russia. By the end of 2020, the number of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied Territories will be higher than the number of Jews in the same area. According to a Yedioth poll, if elections were held today, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would lose. According to a Maariv poll, a majority of Israelis feel that the biggest threat to the security of the state is the wave of violence, while the fear of a nuclear Iran is the biggest threat to only 13% of Israelis, despite the fact 78% are certain Iran won’t meet its commitments
 
After sparking storm with banning of book from curriculum, Education Minister Naftali Bennett presented a new reason for dropping ‘Borderlife,’ it besmirches IDF soldiers, he said.
 
Sources told Haaretz that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein approved the torture of Jewish suspects in the Duma murder-arson case, in which a Palestinian family was burned to death in the West Bank village. Netanyahu was reportedly only informed after the torture. Yedioth/Ynet ran an interesting interview with the wife of the main Duma murders suspect, who will likely be indicted on murder charges next week. Meanwhile, an ultra-Orthodox soldier from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion was sentenced to 21 days in military jail after his gun was passed around between guests at the now-notorious ‘Wedding of Hate,’ where many of the guests were friends with the suspects in the Duma murder case.  Ynet revealed that two other soldiers from the battalion were only “disciplined” after the IDF found that they participated in acts of violence against Palestinian detainees. The punishment was one being transferred to a different unit and the other removed from his command role.
 
 
Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.