News Nosh 12.8.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday December 8, 2017
 
Quote of the Day #1:
"Trump's historic declaration came for Netanyahu exactly in time, but when the champagne bubbles pop and it becomes clear that Jerusalem remains the same Jerusalem, the Prime Minister will have to stand again in the face of the reality that is closing in on him."
--Maariv's senior political analyst, Ben Caspit, connects between the 'Trump Declaration' and the corruption investigations Prime MInister Binyamin Netanyahu faces.*

Quote of the Day #2:
"For the first time, we are identifying daring and covert will to penetrate the centers of government. There are dangerous buds of the combining of interests between senior criminal organizations and government officials in the State of Israel. To say such a statement in public requires a foundation, and indeed, there is a foundation (of evidence). We will not allow it."
--Head of the Israel Police investigations and intelligence department, Commander Meni Yitzhaki, in his retirement speech Wednesday at the Police National Headquarters.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
Despite the uproar and violence sparked by US President Donald Trump's declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, 'Jerusalem, Israel' still won't appear as the place of birth on U.S. passports.

Front Page:
Haaretz
  • Clashes in the West Bank and Gaza following Trump declaration
  • Elementary school children sent to classrooms when schoolgirls sing, fathers separated from daughters at pool, cloth sheet divides schoolboys and schoolgirls during Bnei Akiva (religious Jewish scouts) march. Even the religious people are dealing with religionization
  • FYI to the police: Cocaine is no longer just in the nightclubs
  • The new immigrants who want their children to speak Hebrew without forgetting Russian
  • Books: How is it possible to give grades to the declaration of independence or the bombing of the Altanela? // Tom Segev

Yedioth Ahronoth

  • The Jerusalem test - After Trump’s declaration: Dozens of Palestinians wounded in clashes with security forces, and rockets shot from Gaza. Fear clashes will increase, especially today in Jerusalem after Hamas declared ‘Day of Rage’
  • Investigation summary - Gifts affair: Police expected to recommend putting Netanyahu on trial for bribery; Submarines affair: Police expected to recommend indicting (Netanyahu associates) Shimron and Molcho; Bitan affair: Coalition chairman, according to investigators, aided a crime organization - even after being elected to Knesset; Next affair: In a few weeks, a new investigation will be allowed for publication - and the state will shake // Nahum Barnea
  • (Finance Minister) Kahlon to Netanyahu: The credit is finished (we won’t allow another attempt to pass a law against the police or the rule of law) // Sima Kadmon
  • Prizes to Yedioth photographers
  • Allocations for poor elderly will be increased
  • (Convicted former tourism minister) Stas and his punishment - interview
  • Follow them: Four commanders of the combat corps in a joint interview: Join us
Maariv Weekend (Hebrew links only)
  • Rage alert - IDF increased its forces out of fear of escalation
  • Nasrallah to Arab states: Stop the normalization with Israel
  • Holland: Palestinian broke window of kosher restaurant in Amsterdam
  • No longer the ‘people’s army’ - This is how the IDF is losing the ethos that it carried since the establishment of the state // Yossi Melman
  • A week after the attack on the youth in Qusra, IDF admits: “There is no obligation to coordinate hikes in Area C” // Kalman Libeskind
  • The stone age: 20 years since the breakout of the first Intifada // Dr. Uri Milstein
  • Soldier #1: Lost his father, his mother and his sister and became an outstanding commander
Israel Hayom
  • After the speech: Contacts with other countries to recognize Jerusalem
  • Following Trump’s declaration: Alert for riots today after prayers; IDF increased forces; Disturbances in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem; (Rocket) Launches at Gaza envelope
  • Jerusalem express - 28 minutes by train from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, starting in spring
  • State acting to remove [Arab] MK from his home: “He built it illegally”
  • Buying our world: The Israelis who purchase blue-and-white (Israeli products) - from abroad
  • MK Nava Boker on women, media and the search for love
  • A model is born - Yuval Biton, 19, from Dimona, models for Dolce Gabbana
  • WIth full recognition: This is how the Trump declaration disrupted the plans for the Jerusalem issue

 
News Summary:
The Friday Hebrew newspapers focused on the fallout following the 'Trump Declaration,' (as the papers now call it, in reference to the 'Balfour Declaration') that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. The main story was about the high alert for the Hamas-declared 'Day of Rage' today, after the clashes between Israeli security forces and thousands of Palestinians yesterday and rockets launched from Gaza (but which did not enter Israel), and the fear that this could spiral into a third intifada.
 
The UN Security Council will discuss today Trump’s declaration at the request of eight countries, including France and the UK, whose leaders said Trump’s decision was “unfortunate”  and does not help peace. US Vice President Mike Pence is supposed to arrive in Israel and Palestine today and the Palestinians have already informed the Americans that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won’t be meeting with him, Yasir Ukbi reported on MaarivOnline, to which the Americans said there will be “severe consequences.” Arab-Israeli Members of Knesset said they will boycott Pence’s speech at Knesset, Ukbi reported.

*Israeli analysts and commentators examined the implications of the Trump Declaration, its affects on the country, the region and a future peace process - and tied in the investigations against Netanyahu. Yedioth's Nahum Barnea also gave a summary of the latest corruption investigations and added that there is a new one that will "shake the country" once it is allowed for publication in a few weeks. Maariv's Ben Caspit wrote that "Trump's historic declaration came for Netanyahu exactly in time, but when the champagne bubbles pop and it becomes clear that Jerusalem remains the same Jerusalem, the Prime Minister will have to stand again in the face of the reality that is closing in on him. And in order to escape from it, he will need a real miracle, larger even that the event that happened this week."


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