APN's daily news review from Israel

Wednesday June 22, 2016
 

Quote of the day:

"...in the end you say you made a 'mistake.' You people say that as if you made a mistake in counting money."
--Rafat Badran, the father of Mahmoud, 15, who was killed by the IDF 'by mistake,' spoke to IDF Army Radio.**

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Front Page:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

Israel Hayom

News Summary:
The storm over the IDF killing an innocent Palestinian boy, the excitement over the likelihood that the government will reveal the confidential investigation behind the state’s undeclared kidnapping of the children of Yemenite immigrants,
the expectation ahead of the transfer of F-35s to Israel today, and the concern of Israeli ministers’ and MKs’ over a police document with intelligence information against them were today’s top stories in the Hebrew newspapers.

And in diplomacy, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is attempting to soften the Mideast Quartet report, which blames Israel for the impasse in the peace process, and he has yet to decide whether to finalize the US defense aid deal. Also, an Israel-Turkey reconciliation deal may be concluded on June 26, Turkish officials confirmed, raising hopes for the Israeli gas sector.
 
**The Israeli army opened an investigation into the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old Palestinian teen Tuesday, which the army called a 'mistake' and the Palestinians called ‘indiscriminate shooting’ and ‘killing in cold blood.’ After a stone-throwing incident that lightly injured three people on a major highway that crosses the West Bank, soldiers from the Kfir Brigade responded to the incident by grabbing two suspects and also by 'erroneously' opening fire with a weapon, the army said. The soldier(s) opened fire on a car with Palestinian license plates that was transporting Palestinian youth back home from a pool in a nearby village. They killed Mahmoud Rafat Badran, 15, and seriously injured his two brothers, as well as two other youth in the vehicle. The youth in the car were not involved in the stone-throwing incident, said the army. The army probe will focus on whether soldiers opened fire according to protocol. The PLO said the soldiers shot 'indiscriminately' and referred to the killing of Mahmoud Rafat Badran as a “cold-blooded assassination” and an 'extrajudicial execution. Palestinian leadership called for an immediate UN-led investigation. Rafat Badran, the father of Mahmoud, spoke to Army Radio, expressing his pain at his loss while criticizing the IDF's conduct, Maariv reported. Badran said that Israel was not investigating the incident seriously: "You declared that you made a mistake. In the end you killed a child, you cut off the dream of a child who wanted to be a doctor and play soccer for Real Madrid, and in the end you say you made a mistake. You people say that as if you made a mistake in counting money. That's how you see this thing in your army. " Nevertheless, Badran called to end the bloodshed and said: "Yesterday, (Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas spoke with me. He supports peace. I told him I was ready for my blood be the last incident." In the Knesset, Arab MK Ahmed Tibi said, "Soldiers from the Kfir unit are sadists who shot a child in cold blood," causing a storm in the plenum, Maariv reported. [Extremist – OH] Likud MKs Anat Berko and Oren Hazan interrupted him and Tibi told Berko: "Shut your mouth.” His fellow faction members asked the Jewish members of the plenum: "Is every Arab a terrorist?"
 
Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit denied that police had collected and concealed information on criminal acts by elected officials, despite the report that the police had a dossier on every MK and Ministers' alleged crimes. Maariv reported that there was suspicion that the police had criminal information collected on Minister Gilad Erdan, who serves as Public Security Minister, making him in charge of the police.
 

Quick Hits:

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Features:

"The unopened Pandora's box of Yemenite children": Boaz Sharabi on his sister, who disappeared at age one
…I had tears in my eyes when I heard the debate in the Knesset, the testimonials of people - laymen and intellectuals alike - who spoke about [the kidnapping by Israeli authorities of children of Yemenite immigrants. The children were given to Ashkenazi families who had no children. – OH]. It reminded me of all my thoughts and feelings from early childhood till today. I felt strongly the feeling that nestles within me since my sister disappeared when she was a one-year-old baby. They told my mother and thousands of other mothers and fathers after the disappearance of their children: "Your child is dead." But there was no death certificate and no grave. There were cases of families receiving military draft notices for their (missing) children. Who receives a draft notice if he is dead? How did children at age 18 receive IDF draft orders? There is a bluff here. I, a devout Jew, a Zionist in my ideology and an Israeli patriot, say to myself: How could this happen to me after what the people of Israel went through in the Holocaust? How could it be that we came to Israel to build and be built and things happen to me here, which are hard to believe that can happen at all. Since then, for many years, when I would walk down the street, I looked around me, maybe there is a girl who looks like me, maybe she is my sister. I am only sorry so many Knesset members stood up and walked out in the middle of the debate. It seems as if they have no patience and they are cut off (from reality). But this time leading people promised to go all out and bring out the truth. It is important for me to note and praise the blessed work of journalist Rina Matzliach and MK Nurit Koren. Well done and congratulations to them. They are leading in bringing the truth to light. I don’t want revenge, I am not here to be angry. I just want the truth to come to light for the sake of my sons and for sake of the people of Israel. (Boaz Sharabi, Maariv)
"They told me my sister died, but I saw her peeking from a window"
They grew up in the shadow of the family pain and the claims of the kidnappings of their dear ones. Yonah Yosef saw her sister alive, after she was told she had died. Attorney Yossi Gamliel found documents allegedly proving that his brother was released from hospital, despite that a certificate of his death was provided. Now they stand at the front of a battle to publish the investigation documents in the affair. "If the state claims that no children disappeared, then why (are the files) confidential until 2071?" (Noam Barkan, Yedioth's '24 Hours' supplement, cover)
'Settlers' Documentary Turns a Blind Eye to the Horror of West Bank Life
With its mistaken point of departure, over-cautiousness and absence of realistic portrayals of Palestinian life, the new documentary by Shimon Dotan disappoints. (Uri Klein, Haaretz+)
 
Commentary/Analysis:
Israel Incapable of Telling Truth About Water It Steals From Palestinians (Amira Hass, Haaretz+) Water is the only issue in which Israel (still) finds it difficult to defend its discriminatory, oppressive and destructive policy with pretexts of security and God. 
This is how economic cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians will bear a regional ‘exit’ (Uri Savir, Maariv) We must take advantage of being a high-tech superpower for the sake of sustainable peace. Joint start-up ventures with companies in Palestine are beneficial to both sides, and this how we will break into markets of the Persian Gulf. 
Israel's Negotiating Expert (Haaretz Editorial) Israelis are paying compound interest on Netanyahu’s war against Obama, to the point that it is undermining the strength and quality of the IDF. 
Israel's aid to Cyprus -- an added value (Ariel Bolstein, Israel Hayom) Israel's international relief efforts serve an important moral cause, but they also help Israel's public diplomacy efforts. 
What's a Few Extra Millions for the Settlements? (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) The settlements exist because of all the Israelis who are willing to continue to pay the taxes that finance the settlers and to be their hostages.
The government's policy puts IDF commanders in impossible situations (Ran Adelist, Maariv) Unlike the public trial held for the soldier Elor Azariya, there are other cases that are quietly closed, such as the case of Lt. Col. Neria Yeshurun, who ordered the bombardment of a Gazan medical clinic as a ‘barrage of honor’ for an officer killed the day before. The case was closed with only a reprimand for ordering a ‘revenge barrage.’Such cases escape receiving proper legal treatment. That is a real failure. 
The French initiative will bring no peace (Zeev Jabotinsky, Israel Hayom) Better to expand Israeli rule over Judea and Samaria than adopt a "peace" initiative that will perpetuate the state of war.
Do you have complaints for Netanyahu? Prepare to receive curses from him - and no answers to the content (Yitzhak Ben-Ner, Maariv) At the Responses Council of the Prime Minister, they never responde to his failures or to charges brought against him. And the response pattern is the same: without ideology or principles.
Congrats, Netanyahu. A New Low (Bradley Burston, Haaretz+) The moral is this: If Benjamin Netanyahu can do something like this to someone like this, he can do anything to anyone.
The voice of experience (Maj. Gen. (ret.) Gershon Hacohen, Israel Hayom) With social media dictating public agenda, the IDF faces new challenges and it must provide officers with a wider framework of support.
 

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