APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday February 17, 2017
Number of the day:
55%
--The percentage of Israelis who prefer two states over one state.
--J Street head Jeremy Ben-Ami said the apology by appointed US ambassador to Israel David Friedman for calling J Street supporters 'worse than kapos' did not count for much.**
--The percentage of Israelis who prefer two states over one state.
Quote of the day:
“You can’t take everything one has held over the course of an entire lifetime and expunge that in three
hours."--J Street head Jeremy Ben-Ami said the apology by appointed US ambassador to Israel David Friedman for calling J Street supporters 'worse than kapos' did not count for much.**
Front Page:
Haaretz
- The gifts affair: Netanyahu turned agitated to the US ambassador and aggressively asked for help for Milchan
- US diplomats: We are committed to the two-state solution
- IDF to hold test to integrate female soldiers into tanks
- Database of fallen soldiers is full of mistakes, missing and redundant information
- Researchers: Elad (settler organization) wants to turn an archaeological dig in David’s City (E. Jerusalem) into a shopping mall
- Battle over future of Yokneam city brings back ghosts from the past
- The staged trip in North Korea entices Israeli tourists
- Maha Haj displays a different perspective on Palestinian society
- What can be learned from the map of corruption in the municipalities
- Eva Hoffe’s sory about the Kafkaesque trial that she went through (for Kafka’s papers)
Yedioth Ahronoth
- “Be quiet, sit down, I am not an anti-Semite” – An ultra-Orthodox reporter succeeded in infuriating the US President when he asked him about anti-Semitism in his country and got a shameful rebuke
- So what is the alternative // Nahum Barnea
- Take the money and run // Sever Plocker
- The excuses have run out // Sima Kadmon
- The president of chaos // Orly Azoulay
- Murder of Tair Rada: the scandal of the missing cellular phone
- La Familia land – Maya Zonstein got the closest to the extremist fans of Beitar Jerusalem soccer team and returned with a frightening film
Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)
- Washington: We are still committed to the two-state solution
- The Messiah isn’t coming // Ben Caspit
- Two are holding – As long as the campaign against Trump and Netanyahu continues, the alliance between them will only get stronger // Caroline Glick
- Trump’s pilot // Alon Ben-David
- The path to nowhere // Udi Segal
- The crow and the starling // Ran Adelist
- A world alliance // Avihu Sofer
- Court ruling – It’s time that the political establishment takes from the judges the power to choose themselves // Kalman Libeskind
- Is Kahlon finally succeeding in lowering housing prices
- The new rulers - The results of elections in Hamas are expected to lead to a more combative line towards Israel // Gal Berger
- The population is getting old, the private nursing insurance market is a free-for-all and families are collapsing
- The election map: Will the right-wing takeover Europe in 2017
- A Trump that you didn’t know: The owners of the ammonia tank at Haifa port
Israel Hayom
- “We will reach understandings with the White House over (settlement) construction” – Source in Prime Minister’s delegation
- Ambassador Dermer will work with Washington over the conditions of releasing Pollard
- The economy is growing
- Nasrallah threatens: We will hit the Dimona (nuclear) reactor
- A proposal to Hamas: A port in exchange for disarmament
- Who is Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, who is behind the demonstrations against drafting ultra-Orthodox to the army
- Starting off good: For a change – Israel has a friend in the White House // Boaz Bismuth and Shlomo Cesana
News Summary:
Today’s top stories focused on the statements by David Friedman, the appointed US ambassador to Israel, who evasively told the US Senate that he “would be happy if it were possible to reach a two-state solution,” but then expressed support for a one-state solution when he said that “no one would support a single state in which there are two types of citizens,” the latter which Palestinian officials said would bring bloodshed. Numerous Jewish and Palestinian activists disrupted the confirmation hearing, some using a shofar. Also high in the news was US President Donald Trump’s angry and ‘shameful’ reaction to the question by a religious Jewish reporter about rising anti-Semitism in the US.
Also in the news, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah took credit for the Israeli court order to close down the ammonia tank at Haifa port and recommended to Israelis to also close down the nuclear reactor in Dimona, saying he could reach that, too. On the issue of Gaza, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman offered Hamas that Israel would help build infrastructure, a port and an aiport and create jobs in the Gaza Strip if Hamas agrees to demilitarize and return the three Israeli civilians and the bodies of two IDF soldiers it is holding. Hamas replied that in exchange for the return of the Israelis, Israel must release the Palestinians in Israeli jails, many of whom Israel rounded up and imprisoned as part of its operation in searching for three Israeli youth that were kidnapped in the West Bank and later found dead.
Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.