APN's daily news review from Israel

Wednesday May 11, 2016
 

Quote of the day:

“We won’t give up the hope of making peace with our enemies, but first we’ll reconcile within ourselves.”
--Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the opening state Memorial Day ceremony Tuesday evening, recognizing publicly, possibly for the first time, the existence of the growing rifts in Israeli society [between right and left, Mizrachi and Ashkenazi, Jews and Arabs], which many accuse him of making deeper.

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Front Page:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

Israel Hayom

News Summary:
On Day of Remembrance for the Fallen and hours before celebrations begin this evening for Israel’s 68th Independence Day, the papers were filled with personal stories paying tribute to the fallen and celebrating the creation of the state. 

Although the Hebrew papers declared on the front pages that the ‘people’ are bowing their heads in unity with the memory of those who fell on the occasion of Israel’s Memorial Day today, the political, civilian, and military leaders of the country gave speeches last night about the lack of unity among the people themselves, revealing their concerns over the boiling divisions in Israeli society. Haaretz emphasized that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We won’t give up the hope of making peace with our enemies, but first we’ll reconcile within ourselves. National reconciliation comes out of our shared fate.” Maariv stressed the statements by IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, who said that the military's soldiers and commanders "must know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the entire nation supports them and stands behind them, even when there are disagreements,” but that "unity does not necessarily mean agreeing on everything. We must not allow these disagreements hurt our shared goal.” [NOTE: The IDF has angered many Israelis recently: when Eisenkot said that soldiers should not kill a Palestinian girl attacking Israelis with scissors, when the IDF arrested and put on trial soldier Elor Azariya for shooting in the head and killing an already neutralized, injured Palestinian assailant, and when last week the Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Golan compared trends in Israeli society to those of Germany in the 1930’s saying, “Because if there is anything that frightens me in the remembrance of the Holocaust, it is discerning nauseating trends that took place in Europe in general, and in Germany specifically back then, 70, 80 and 90 years ago, and seeing evidence of them here among us in the year 2016…After all, there is nothing simpler and easier than hating those who are different, there is nothing easier and simpler than to sow fear and terror, there is nothing easier and simpler than becoming bestial, morally corrupt and self-righteous.”] Maariv’s military correspondent, Noam Amir, wrote that Eisenkot’s words last night were made because of the latest storm over Golan’s speech. President Reuven Rivlin also spoke about the rift in Israeli society.
 
**Some numbers ahead of Israeli Independence Day, which begins this evening. The State of Israel is 68. A poll in Maariv found that 56% of Israelis define themselves as right-wing, 28% as ‘center,’ and 16% as left-wing. 84% of Israelis are proud to be Israeli and 16% are not proud. 76% of Israelis believe Israel is a good place to live, while 24% think it’s not a good place to live.  Some 73% believe that Israel is ‘a given fact,’ while 21% believe that Israel is in existential danger and 6% don’t know. A poll published in Haaretz+ revealed that 16% of Israeli academics disguise their national identity when undertaking or submitting drafts of their research. In a sign of the increasing religious influence on Israeli society, only after protests, a woman singer was allowed to participate in the Memorial Day ceremony at Tel-Aviv University. [According to a religious Jewish tradition, men are not allowed to hear a woman’s voice singing. – OH]
           
Israel has sealed off the West Bank and Gaza for Memorial Day and Independence Day, i.e. from Tuesday midnight to Thursday midnight.
 
Also in the news, Opposition leader, MK Isaac Herzog is desperately trying to get his faction, Zionist Camp, to join Netanyahu’s government, but MK Tzipi Livni and, reportedly, many Labor party members oppose the move. Netanyahu caused diplomatic embarrassment when he said that he threatened Egypt with an IDF commando raid into Cairo in 2011 if the Egyptians didn’t rescue Israeli security staff besieged by demonstrators at the embassy. Netanyahu’s office later backtracked and released a statement saying that Netanyahu meant a ‘coordinated’ raid with the Egyptian army. A source at Israel’s Foreign Ministry told Maariv that there is no record of a military option ever being considered.

 

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