APN's daily news review from Israel

Monday February 25, 2019

 

Quote of the day:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

Israel Hayom

Elections 2019 News:
Hayamin Hehadash co-chairman Naftali Bennett accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of planning to divide Jerusalem and establish a Palestinian state after elections, Yedioth/Ynet revealed the agreement between Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid over who has what role in their new Kahol-Lavan party, and an Israel Hayom-i24NEWS poll predicted that Kahol-Lavon would win 36 seats to Likud’s 31, but that it wouldn’t have enough partners to form a coalition, making top election news stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers. Also, the pro-Netanyahu led Conference of Presidents gave a watered-down criticism of Netanyahu’s deal with the racist Otzma Yehudit party, Channel 13 reported that Ehud Barak was behind the Gantz-Lapid merger, and while Israel Hayom reported that the next Knesset could see a record number of female MKs, Haaretz reported that it would see fewer (Hebrew).

Other News Summary:
The biggest story of the day was that the Exemptions Committee ordered Netanyahu to pay his cousin back the $300,000 in legal defense funding for the three corruption cases against him and to return the expensive suits he received from another wealthy friend, Spencer Partridge - or pay for them if he used them already. Basically they said he was wealthy enough to pay for his own defense. (See Ben Caspit’s biting Op-Ed on that in Commentary. - OH] Indeed, Forbes Israel revealed that Netanyahu is the fourth richest politician with $14 million to his name. If that weren’t enough, the committee’s response revealed what most did not know, that Netanyahu was business partners with his cousin, Nathan Milikowsky, in a steel firm that supplied steel to Thyssenkorp, the company that is involved in a fourth corruption case, in which Netanyahu has yet to be named. Netanyahu reacted to the news saying that he “sold his shares a long time ago.” (Maariv) But Ben Caspit points out that he still had shares when he was Finance Minister and leader of the opposition and one year as premier. So it comes as no surprise that Netanyahu wants to petition the High Court to approve that someone else pay his legal expenses.

And with the exception of Haaretz+, the tension on the Temple Mount has yet to make headlines, even after Israel briefly detained the top Waqf official at 5AM Sunday from his home and later in the day released him. A Waqf official said that the detention of Sheikh Abdel-Azeem Salhab, a Jordanian who is considered one of Jerusalem's leading religious figures, was highly unusual - and unacceptable. A Jordanian minister called it a "dangerous and an unacceptable escalation." The police released Sheikh Salhab, even though he refused to sign a week-long order barring his entry from the Temple Mount. In a rare move, the Waqf called on Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit to intervene in Israel Police’s decision to keep Bab al-Rahma shut. Maan reported that Israeli authorities also detained Waqf official, Sheikh Raed Daana, and released him after banning him from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for six consecutive months. The tension began last week as Muslim worshipers demanded the opening of the Golden Gate, to pray in the Bab al-Rahma, a structure on the Temple Mount. Israel locked the structure in 2003. Haaretz’s Nir Hasson explains why Israel and Jordan are clashing over the Temple Mount.

Another source of tension between Israel and the Palestinians that barely made the news was over the long-problematic issue of no telephones for Palestinian security prisoners. The Palestinians have been smuggling cellular phones into the prisons to speak with their loved ones and others. Now, Haaretz reported that Israel has installed a cellphone disruption device, which has sparked a crisis between prison officials and jailed Hamas leaders who are calling for a 'prisoners' movement.’ Now Israel is preparing for clashes. Oddly, Israel Hayom reported on it, but in its subtitle it did not describe the source of the tension - only saying that “Hamas threatens violence.”

Also noteworthy, Yedioth ran a misleading article over half of page 10, declaring that Palestinians ‘uprooted the memory’ of Ori Ansbacher, who was raped and murdered earlier this month by a young Palestinian man. The article reported that Palestinians uprooted Sunday 50 tree saplings that were planted Friday in memory of Ansbacher. The article gave the response of the Head of the Gush Etzion settler council, who called it “terror against Jewish agriculture.” The reporter, Elisha Ben-Kimon, did not bother to find out what the other side had to say. But a video posted in a similarly-one-sided report on the right-wing Channel 20 website revealed the argument that broke out between the settlers and the Palestinians, the latter who said in Hebrew and Arabic that this was their privately-owned land and they had papers to prove it and the settlers had none.
 

Quick Hits:

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Features:

And Kahane Chai is Alive and Kicking
On the 25th anniversary of the massacre by Baruch Goldstein at the Cave of the Patriarchs (in Hebron) and of making the the Kahane party, Kach, illegal, a Yedioth and Ynet investigation reveals the organizations, the charities and the shadow network that the former Kach party members established after its activities were banned. At least one of the NGOs, 'Yeshivat HaRaayon Hayehudi,' (the Yeshiva of the Jewish idea) appears in the US government list of terror organizations. We found among the members of the organization the name of the candidate for the Knesset from the united right-wing party, Dr. Michael Ben-Ari (Otzma Yehudit). While AIPAC is horrified, a great portion of the funding for these organizations comes from Jews of America. These are the Americans donating to them, some without knowing: Central Fund for Israel, Traditional Fund, Charity of Light, American Friends of Yeshivat HaRaayon. One of the organizations, Hemla, received more than a million shekels fin 2016 rom the Ministry of Social Welfare.Ran Cohen from the Democratic Bloc: "Money that is passed from the state to Kahanist organizations is just one example of the way in which the ruling government launders Kahanism. Kahane's disciples use democracy to incite and destabilize its foundations." Ben-Ari: "Lies meant to bring down the right-wing." (Yehuda Shochat, Yedioth front page and '24 Hours' supplement, cover)
 
Elections 2019 Commentary/Analysis:
Kahanism: Last refuge of a scoundrel (Haaretz Editorial) Every person of conscience must imagine a leader of any country accusing a political opponent of relying on 'Jewish votes.’
I Told Meir Kahane: You and Louis Farrakhan Both Raise Money the Same Way – by Attacking Jews (Daniel Landes, Haaretz+) When I was a rabbi in LA, Kahane informed me he would visit my shul. I shut the door – but others let him in. Now, Kahanism's theology and politics of racist exclusion is consuming Israel's religious Zionist camp.
Caught in a Trump trap, Netanyahu pins his hopes on Abbas (Itamar Eichner, Yedioth/Ynet) Bennett claims Netanyahu has already signed off on the terms of a US peace agreement, which he says includes creation of Palestinian state and division of Jerusalem, and the prime minister is now in the position of depending on the PA to save him from the fallout of such a dramatic departure from his usual political rhetoric.
Homo-politicus: We were raised in the politics of camps, trained to hate each other (Meir Uziel, Maariv) The greatest force in the Israeli political system is not love or faith - but hatred. The requirement is: with me or against me, if you support everyone, you are simply deleted.
Bibi Fires Up the Opposition (Iris Leal, Haaretz+) Quite a number of decent right-wingers will find hard to swallow the approval of Meir Kahane’s successors and special legislation to save the prime minister’s skin from indictments.
Where is your English from? AIPAC did not condemn Netanyahu (Michael Kleiner, Maariv) A little better English would have put the condemnation that had received great attention in the right light. After all, this is not the first time this has happened. And what can the left-wing tolerate after what it did? All that AIPAC did was that it repeated its 2009 announcement from when Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, a representative of Otzma Yehudit, then Chel party, was elected to the Knesset for the first time. Then, the left-wing organizations did not mobilize…AIPAC of 2009 released a laconic statement that it would boycott MK Ben-Ari. And what happened this time, 10 years later, was that AIPAC had repeated its announcement. Not a word against Bibi. No condemnation.
AIPAC is being irresponsible (Dror Eydar, Israel Hayom) For the sake of its important work, the lobby – which is not the American Jewish community – must refrain from making an ill-informed leap into Israeli politics, especially at such a sensitive time.
After Collapse of Joint List, Israeli Arabs Fear Poor Election Outcome (Jack Khoury, Haaretz+) Will the four Arab-majority parties continue with the ego battles and internecine fighting that will seriously damage their chances at the polls?
Thanks to Netanyahu for Reminding Me of My Urge to Destroy the Jewish State (Odeh Bisharat, Haaretz+) Netanyahu blames the Arab parties for working toward 'the elimination of the state of Israel' when in fact the prime minister himself has a few things to teach us about the art of destruction.
How Netanyahu revived Jewish supremacism and paved its way to power (Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz+) If Meir Kahane hadn't come to Israel, his toxic Brooklyn-born racism would have withered away. But his ideology found fertile ground, shed its accent and has now been legitimated by Israel's prime minister.

Commentary/Analysis:
The ticking time bomb that could upend Israel's election (Amos Harel, Haaretz+) The Israeli government’s move to withhold 500 million shekels ($140 million) from tax revenues it collects for the Palestinian Authority may be good politics, but It can lead to war.
War will likely rise from the south (Prof. Eyal Zisser, Israel Hayom) Palestinian Islamic Jihad, operating out of Gaza, has chosen to put its fate in Iran's hands, which is uncustomary not only in the Palestinian arena but in the entire Sunni world.
Under Israeli Occupation, Water Is a Luxury (Amira Hass, Haaretz+) Of all the methods Israel uses to expel Palestinians from their land, the deprivation of water is the most cruel. And so the Palestinians are forced to buy water that Israel stole from them.
Chipping away at the status quo (Nadav Shragai, Israel Hayom) The breach of the Golden Gate area, which has been closed since 2003, is the latest move by the Jordanians and Palestinians to assert their rights to the Temple Mount in violation of agreements with Israel.
Netanyahu suffers legal blow, and it could be devastating (Gidi Weitz, Haaretz+) For Netanyahu, move to bar him from receiving aid for lawyers is a strategic attack.
The final refusal of the Exceptions Committee to Netanyahu's request (for legal aid funding) opens a new Pandora's box (Ben Caspit, Maariv) Netanyahu will not be able to finance his legal defense from donations, which threatens to bring about a real strategic disaster. Netanyahu is a rich man. Only yesterday, Forbes reported that it was fourth among Israeli politicians with a capital estimated at NIS 50 million. In its decision, the permits committee refers to the capital declarations that Netanyahu himself submitted and defined him as "an affluent person." One can say with certainty that it is worth tens of millions. For G-d’s sake, why can’t a person who is worth tens of millions invest a million or two (in shekels) in legal defense after getting into trouble, like every one of us? The answer: The Netanyahu family is not an ordinary family and it is not "like any of us." This is a family that has not held credit cards since time immemorial. Why? "Because we are afraid to lose them" (from the testimony of Mrs. Netanyahu). So here's a suggestion: pay for the legal defense by check or wire transfer. But the story does not end there. It's just beginning. The decision of the permits committee yesterday threatens to open a new Pandora's box. The wording of the decision reveals some things that we did not know: It emerges that Netanyahu is not only related to Natan Milkovsky's family. The two were also business partners and held shares and a substantial stake in a steel corporation. The name of the corporation was not mentioned, but it is said that they held a large part of it, and that Milkovsky lent Netanyahu money to pay a tax claim because of the profits from holding the shares. Reminder: Milkovsky controls a steel corporation that was a supplier of the German corporation Thyssenkrup. Yes, yes, the corporation of the submarines [acquisition corruption - OH] affair. I do not know if this is the same corporation. If so, it makes Netanyahu into a direct beneficiary of Thyssenkrup's activity. A thorough investigation is required. The Netanyahu family's response does not shed light on this story, but on the contrary, it tries to wrap it in the shadows: "Everything is fake news. The prime minister owned shares in his cousin's company when he was a private citizen. With the full approval of the authorities. For the past decade, the prime minister has no connection to the company and he does not know whether or not it had any connection to Thyssenkrup." In this response there is a striking inaccuracy: Contrary to what was said, Netanyahu was not a shareholder in a private corporation "as a private citizen." He sold the shares only a year after he was elected prime minister, and in all previous years he was, respectively, the chairman of the opposition, the finance minister and the foreign minister. A "private citizen” he was not. He was a businessman and invested in a steel corporation without reporting it to the public, as a public official. It’s quite shocking. All that needs to be discovered now is whether this is the corporation that has trade relations with Thyssenkrup. The Pandora's box that was opened this time could bring Netanyahu a real strategic disaster. Imagine that not only the value of the two suits he received from Spencer Partridge will Netanyahu be asked to return, but the value of all the other presents he has received over the years, and not only from Arnon Milchan. Can the Netanyahu family survive such an event? In the end, we reach the core of the reactor from which the Netanyahu [corruption] cases grew: the unfortunate fact that this family has trouble reaching into its pocket, even though it is a full pocket.
Despite the injustice caused to Netanyahu by the Exceptions Committee, he would better off to give up on the appeal to the High Court of Justice (Attorney Yehiel Gutman, Maariv) The members of the committee erred when they did not allow the prime minister to raise funds to finance his legal defense in his [corruption] cases, but the High Court may make harmful comments, and his salary would be lost.
Israel's moon mission doesn't stop the trains from running (Raanan Shaked, Yedioth/Ynet) The launch of unmanned explorer Beresheet to the moon left many Israelis wondering whether the state should spend hundreds of million on space programs when the infrastructure in the country is in such dire state.
The king reinstated the draft but Moroccans demand employment and education first (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) The decision to reinstate compulsory military service sparked a storm of protest with people saying they won't serve as long as the government fails to provide them with essential services.
Will Senator Bernie Sanders make it to the finish line this time and offer an alternative to Donald Trump? (Shmuel Rosner, Maariv) The senator from Vermont, the prophet of anger of the generation who wants to pull the Democratic Party to the left, is running again for the White House, now at the age of 77.
 

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