APN's daily news review from Israel

Sunday June 19, 2016

You Must Be Kidding: 
"Son of a Nazi."
--One of the numerous attacks on social media networks against IDF Maj. Tom Naaman, who testified against Sgt. Elor Azariya, the 'Shooting Soldier from Hebron,' who shot in the head a Palestinian assailant, who had already been shot, wounded and neutralized.**

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Front Page:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

Israel Hayom

 
News Summary:
Former Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had “lost his mind” and a man had a heart attack in Tel-Aviv and crashed into a restaurant killing himself and two people, including a Jewish American man, making top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers.
 
Also high in the news was the report of hateful attacks by Israelis in social media networks against IDF company commander Maj. Tom Naaman, who testified against his soldier, Sgt. Elor Azariya, the statement by Israeli Police Commissioner Ronnie Alsheikh that the "police Fraud Unit could make or break governments" and the government decision to allot 70 million shekels to West Bank settlements.
 
Ehud Barak not only said that Netanyahu must be brought down, but that Barak would help to do so, but without running for prime minister. The commentators perceived his words as powerful, even though he had said as much on Thursday.(Haaretz ran a list of ‘top 12 zingers and putdowns’ that Barak said about Netanyahu et al.) Zionist Camp MK Shelly Yachimovitch said, "I have no doubt that Netanyahu won’t be the next prime minister." (Maariv) Her colleague, Zionist Camp MK Tsipi Livni said that Israel needs a national referendum now, to see whether Israel is going in a two-state direction or one-state. And former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz said Israel was not under an existential threat.
 
Meanwhile, EU foreign ministers are expected to endorse the French Peace Initiative Monday, despite Israel’s attempts to stop them from supporting it. And Israel approved a massive 72 million shekel ($18 million) financial package for settlements. Yedioth’s Itamar Eichner wrote that while ‘security’ is being used as the justification of the allotment, “an examination of the budget shows that a large proportion of the money is intended for fields which are not related to security matters.”
 
**After taking to the witness stand in the trial of Sgt. Elor Azariya, the soldier accused of killing an already neutralized Palestinian assailant in Hebron, and presenting a contradictory version of the events, Major Tom Naaman, Azariya’s commander was exposed to curses and harsh words on social media networks, Maariv and Yedioth reported. Naaman testified that the Palestinian assailant posed no danger when Azariya shot him in the head and when Naaman asked Azariya who gave him permission to shoot the man, Azariya said he did it because “the terrorist was alive and needed to die.” Angry Israelis wrote on Facebook: “I would not go to war with an officer like that, he would probably sell us off.” "In retrospect, with an officer like him, it’s better not to enlist. Shame on him, how could he sell his subordinate? How will he go back and look in the faces of the other soldiers, friends of Elor?" "An officer like that could sell any soldier for a fu**ing rank. Oy, that you have an army with such officers. I am ashamed of this officer, I hope that there aren’t a lot like him in the army. Gross." Neeman’s friends responded with Facebook posts that these people don’t know what they are talking about, they don’t know what they are defending and that Neeman is the salt of the earth and a real hero: “I ask those same belligerent people, who jump without thinking, insulting a commander and calling to denounce him, what were you thinking? Who exactly are you protecting? What principles are you protecting? All those self-righteous people who preach such statements like, ‘It is inappropriate to follow him in battle,’ which battle you exactly did you fight in? I say: you do not deserve the earth under your feet. What have you done? You’ve leisurely finished your Shabbat dinner and regurgitated foolishness on to your keyboard…(Elor Azariya) was no hero. A soldier like that is the last to be a hero. A hero is a warrior who gives a hand at the most inconvenient time to do so, a hero is a warrior who strives to reach the enemy during an incident when it is the scariest to do so, a hero is a warrior who uses subterfuge in the battlefield when they are all lost, he is the first to be there. Mainly, he is the first to face the truth…The people of Israel should be proud that it has commanders such as Tom Naaman. Today, I am proud to know people like him." (Maariv)
 

Quick Hits:

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Features:

Benjamin Netanyahu’s billionaires club
'There was always someone who knew to tell him – pay attention to that guy, he’s a multimillionaire. Then Netanyahu would know to be nice to him.' (Shuki Sadeh, Haaretz+)
The weapons path: This is how IDF combat weapons are trickling down to the underworld
Explosive blocks, grenades, rockets, guns, and other weapons are leaking from the military to the streets. Police and military police are battling the phenomenon, but it is clear to the investigators: the extent of it is greater than known. (Amir Zohar, Maariv) 
What a Palestinian Parliament Member Learned in an Israeli Prison
Khalida Jarrar knew a lot about prisoner issues, but her 14 months behind bars offered plenty of surprises. (Amira Hass, Haaretz+)
Yatta: A heritage of terrorism
The terrorists from the Sarona shooting belong to the Mahamra clan, one of the biggest families in the Palestinian town of Yatta. The clan is actually descended from Jews and for generations kept some Jewish traditions. Now they have embraced terrorism. (Nadav Shragai, Israel Hayom)
'My Husband Is 67, He Can't Be a Terrorist'
Arrivals / Departures: A Christian family on a pilgrimage to Israel and the West Bank expects, and gets, the infamous Ben-Gurion Airport treatment; the man behind the Israeli answer to 'This American Life' reveals the secret to storytelling. (Liat Elkayam, Haaretz)
Why the Sea of Galilee's Level Is a Problem - for Jordan
If the Israeli water authorities' plans work out, Jordan will be using roughly twice as much Lake Kinneret water as Israel will. (Hagai Amit and Shuki Sadeh, Haaretz+)

Commentary/Analysis:
Standing Up to Israel's Dangerous Government (Haaretz Editorial) The listlessness of Israel's opposition leaders lends significance to the criticism expressed by figures who are no longer in the Knesset or the cabinet. 
Barak and Ya'alon are not the only ones worried (Nahum Barnea, Yedioth/Ynet) Whatever Barak and Ya'alon's motives are, they're not the point. Their scathing criticism of Netanyahu's government comes of a feeling of emergency, and that same feeling has been popping up in many places across the country.
Moshe Ya’alon Is Not the Answer to Israel's Problems (Gideon Levy, Haaretz+) Don’t fall for the chutzpah of the former defense minister, whose calls for the establishment of a ‘model society’ in Israel completely ignore the evils of occupation.
A declaration of war (Dan Margalit, Israel Hayom) This is likely to be one of the most fascinating struggles in the history of Israel's national politics.
Even Without Running, Ehud Barak Presents a Public Challenge to Netanyahu (Barak Ravid, Haaretz+) The former prime minister's announcement that he is not planning a return to politics must be taken with a hefty dose of salt, but his latest appearances have done more to worry Netanyahu than any center-left politician in recent years. 
Trying to fool the Americans (Sima Kadmon, Yedioth/Ynet) Netanyahu was fantasizing about entering the US elections on a white horse, and was confident Israel would receive a much larger military aid package under a new president. He was wrong. 
Israel's 'Sober Realist' Approach to Terror Describes Nothing but Yesterday's World (Carolina Landsmann, Haaretz+) Orlando attack was laden with signs that the paradigms and terminology used to describe terror are past their sell-by date. 
Every one of President Rivlin's speeches has a nuance in common: Something is wrong with Israeli society (Kalman Libskind, Maariv) If until now we thought that there is one ethos that connects between us here, Reuven Rivlin's speech came and broke it into pieces: Those who give and those who don’t, those who contributes and those who only take – they are all the same…He spat in the faces of the bereaved families, of reserve soldiers…he spat in the faces of Zionists and in the face of Zionism.
The Leadership Must Stop Pandering: Israel as a Free Nation Won't Survive the Occupation (Zeev Sternhell, Haaretz+) Democracy requires acceptance of the majority decision, but it does not mandate recognition of the rightness or the moral legitimacy of the majority. 
An assault on the government: Dramatic and irrelevant (Mati Tuchfeld, Israel Hayom) The streets remained unsurprisingly quiet after Prime Minister Ehud Barak's full-of-pathos call on the masses to topple the government • Attempts at political noise give the sense that early elections are imminent, but that would be the biggest mistake.
Politicians call the shots for Israel's 'free' press (Yossi Verter, Haaretz+) In Israel – not in Turkey, not in Syria, not in Egypt and not in North Korea – the prime minister’s gopher reaches agreement with a party in the ruling coalition about when and how and if the board chairman of an independent, commercial media organization will or will not take office. 
This is how a huge gap was created between the image of the Second Lebanon war and its actual results (Yossi Melman, Maariv) Why do so many refuse to acknowledge the achievements of the war in 2006? And Netanyahu announced this week that he could never accept the Saudi peace initiative, but according to foreign reports, the secret intelligence relations between the two countries are expanding. 
An F-35 Is Only as Good as Its Country's Leaders (Amir Oren, Haaretz+) With Israel set to receive the first of its state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets, we must remember that without a political pilot, there’s no point in a plane. 
Former defense chiefs provide a night of the long knives for Netanyahu (Yossi Verter, Haaretz+) On Thursday both Moshe Ya’alon and Ehud Barak gave speeches saying Bibi’s got to go, with Barak turning the foray into a slasher film. 
The magic ended: only great derision of Netanyahu can unite Barak and Ya'alon on a single agenda (Ben Caspit, Maariv) Netanyahu recently became convinced that what he thinks about himself is true. He is a political magician that can exit any impasse which he maneuvers himself into. He is not yet at a dead end, but it seems to me that he no longer a magician. 
For the first time in years, Netanyahu faces political opposition worthy of the name (Barak Ravid, Haaretz+) Ehud Barak and Moshe Ya'alon's Herzliya conference addresses should very much worry Netanyahu. They are a part of a group that carries weight in the public Israeli sphere that might start working, together or apart, to depose him.
 
 

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