APN's daily news review from Israel

Tuesday December 24, 2019

NOTE: News Nosh wishes a Happy Holidays to all its readers!

 

Quote of the day:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

Israel Hayom

Elections 2019/Netanyahu Indictment News:
The battle between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his Likud rival Gideon Saar for Likud votes continued in high gear ahead of the Likud primaries Wednesday with Saar promising to push to make Netanyahu President, if he wins the Likud leadership and, meanwhile, the Likud party cancelled its elections for the party list.

Other Top News Summary:
Other top stories were that the driver of the bus that crashed into a bus stop killing four was arrested on negligent manslaughter, and Reuters news agency revealed that about 1,500 people were killed in Iran during the two weeks of unrest  in November, when the Supreme religious leader Ayatollah Khameini ordered that forces "do what was necessary" to put down the demonstrations against regime over the dire economic situation. Yedioth Hebrew, interestingly, had its own reporter - an anonymous Iranian citizen, who shared wrote that the people “don’t want a revolution, we want to make a living.” The man wrote that citizens heard the report that 1500 were killed and they don’t know what to believe and Iranian authorities have in recent days contacted families of the dead, demanding that they declare that their sons committed suicide.

Israel Hayom (Hebrew) accused B'Tselem organization of ‘helping’ the prosecutor at The Hague, in its decision to probe Israel for war crimes against the Palestinians. ‘Israel Hayom’ explained that the ICC Prosecutor’s decision to probe is based on two assumptions: that Israel committed war crimes and that it was impossible to trust the Israeli judicial system to deal with this issue. “These two assumptions adopted are the result of an extensive international campaign run by a network of organizations and associations in Israel, led by B'Tselem, and by the Palestinian Authority, all of which are funded through donations from European countries.” The paper gives the example of a grant B’Tselem received from the Dutch government to produce a report on the role of Israel’s High Court in dispossessing Palestinian communities. And B'Tselem received a grant of 87,000 shekels from the Swedish Deacon in 2019 for "examining court rulings on the violation of Palestinian human rights" and in 2018  it received 70,000 shekels for a project on the ”High Court ruling on house demolitions.” The paper quotes a study by the right-wing organization, NGO MONITOR, which it said shows that in some cases, the sponsoring states state that the funding is specifically for action against the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

*Interestingly, for the second day, the papers have reported on how Israel is adjusting its conduct out of fear of the ICC probe. Today, Yedioth/Ynet reported that Netanyahu at the last minute cancelled a meeting of an inter-ministerial team meant to formulate a bill that would annex the Jordan Beqaa Valley. Sources said, he put the bill on hold out of fear the move would further antagonize the Hague. Yesterday
Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz said Israel will not evict the Khan al-Ahmar Bedouin village in the West Bank "because of fear of the International Court of Justice at The Hague." Katz told KAN Bet Radio that the government feared that the removal of the compound in the West Bank would be the "last straw" in terms of the international body. (Maariv) The ICC Prosecutor's announcement has also affected other organizations. UN decided to finally publish the blacklist of companies operating in settlements after an extensive delay. The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Michelle Bachelet is believed to have been encouraged to publish the list by the ICC prosecutor’s decision to open a probe into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories. (Yedioth/Ynet)

Quick Hits:

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Features:

Decade in Review For Israel’s Reform and Conservative Jews, an Uphill Battle With Some Reprieves
The non-Orthodox movements have experienced impressive growth in their number of congregations since 2010. However, the Chief Rabbinate’s grip on matters of religion and state is proving hard to loosen | 2010-2020 roundup: Part 2 (Judy Maltz, Haaretz+)
Terror victims' families are battling to make punishment worse: "Killing a Jew is very economic"
"Choosing Life" forum, whose members are family who lost their loved ones in terrorist attacks, launched a mass funding campaign for the legal and public battle to prevent the next attack. (Ilana Stutland, Maariv)
1927-2019 Israeli-Danish Journalist – and an Undercover Mossad Agent – Dies
Herbert (Nahum) Pundak, 'the flying editor,' shocked his many readers when he revealed his work for the Israeli spy agency in several African countries in the 1960s. (Ofer Aderet, Haaretz+)
LISTEN The Mossad, China's Trojan horse and censorship
Yossi Melman on spooks and secrets (Haaretz Weekly Podcast)


Elections 2019/Netanyahu Indictment Commentary/Analysis:
Danger to democracy (Ben-Dror Yemini, Yedioth Hebrew) It could happen. We should pray, in any way, that this does not happen. Because, God forbid, it would not only be an earthquake, it would not only be the culmination of all the heights of the crossing of red lines, it would not be just a trampling of democracy - it would be primarily a boomerang. Because if the High Court, God forbid, decides to break the explicit law and prevent Binyamin Netanyahu from running for election, or prevent him from forming a government after the election - he will bring the rise of close to half the nation, and maybe more, and he will push people to the polls, to give victory to the right. Netanyahu is bad for Israel. Even very bad. He is publicly corrupt, even if not criminally so. He deepens the internal rifts. He leads us to the disaster of the country. He collaborates with racists to serve his personal interests. But political stance and public criticism is one thing. Constitutional principles are another. They make it clear that he is entitled to innocence until proven guilty. In Israel, an explicit provision was also made in the law that a prime minister should not resign, unless we reach a stage of conviction with which there is indisputable flagrant infamy. I wish Netanyahu would rid us of this dilemma. I wish he would quit. That he would serve the national interest. But he decided otherwise. He takes advantage of the law, perhaps even a cynical exploit, but the law is on his side. And all the claims that he is not really a prime minister, but just a transitional prime minister, and therefore the law does not apply to him, are superficial contradictions that seek to manipulate public opinion to approve a decision that tramples the law…
Netanyahu Is Not Trump (Tzvia Greenfield, Haaretz+) In reality these two leaders differ greatly from one another, as do their political and legal situations. Both are unquestionably pursuers of publicity, personal glory and the good things in life. But what Trump was able to obtain for himself (or his family’s money obtained for him) in decades of wheeling and dealing, Netanyahu tried and apparently succeeded to generate for himself and his family as illegal favors, thanks to his status as prime minister. That is why three criminal indictments have already been served against Netanyahu, for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, not to mention the affair of the submarines, the shares and the business connections with Nathan Milikowsky, which have yet to be properly investigated.
Timer Period: The spirit of this period is to count backward (Dror Raphael, Maariv) We measure the time remaining until the expiry of the mandate, until the elections, until the formation of the government. We delete the days from the National Despair Table and are left waiting for the next big drama.
Netanyahu and a court coalition quandary (Tova Tzimuki, Yedioth/Ynet) The High Court has received a petition seeking to ban an indicted prime minister from forming a government, but with a third national election looming, will the justices and the attorney general be willing to issue a ruling that could be seen as political intervention?

Other Commentary/Analysis:
What Our Students Will Learn (Or Kashti, Haaretz+) The Education Ministry’s recent directive to high school civics teachers with regard to the so-called nation-state law left no room for doubt: “The students will know and understand the content of the law and its components;” the students will understand that the law contains the characteristics of the State of Israel as a Jewish state;” and, most important, “the students will internalize the vision of the state, including Israel’s being the state of the Jewish people.” It’s not enough to know or understand; there is a more important test: internalization. Only when Israel’s Arab students write in their test booklet 100 times that their inferior status is enshrined in a Basic Law will the Kohelet Policy Forum, which promoted the program, and the Education Ministry, whose minister this week politically embraced the successors of Meir Kahane, be reassured.
Investigation against Israel at The Hague: The Tribunal puts itself in a mess that it is unclear how it will come out (Shlomo Shamir, Maariv) According to UN diplomats, the plaintiff's decision will place the tribunal in red tape that will significantly impair its activity and its status will be undermined in the global arena.
The Gift That Keeps on Giving (Haaretz Editorial) State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman had brought an evil wind into the institution he now heads. Under the banner of “constructive criticism,” Englman, who was promoted to his current position by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without any relevant experience in law or oversight, is neutering and censoring the comptroller’s reports and emptying them of meaning.
Syria: An irresistible force (Israel) meets an immovable object (Iran) (Yoav Limor, Israel Hayom) There was nothing overtly extraordinary about Sunday night's missile attack near Damascus, which was attributed to Israel. And yet, it very well could have signaled the start of a new phase in Israel's campaign to remove Iran from Syria.
Israeli Right Wants End to Peace With Jordan (Rogel Alpher, Haaretz+) Israel has big plans for Jordan, but they don’t include King Abdullah II. A long list of articles by right-wing commentators, PR hacks for the government, which were published over the past month in media (Caroline Glick in Israel Hayom, Aryeh Eldad in Maariv, Motti Karpel in Makor Rishon and others), raised similar arguments and identical conclusions. Coincidence? Maybe. It is more reasonable to assume the similarity stems from briefings by the same official. All these articles have the same objective: Blowing up the peace treaty with Jordan.
Forecasting the Mideast in 2020 (David M. Weinberg, Israel Hayom) In the next year, Israel must be ready to tackle Iran militarily on its own and fight a pre-emptive war with Hezbollah.
A Muslim Woman in London Is Our Light (Francesco Patton, Haaretz+) during the last year, we have seen violence exploding in an inhuman and brutal way against people who were praying. This violence has struck the Jewish community in the United States, the Muslim community in New Zealand, as well as the Christian community in Sri Lanka and Burkina Faso. On the other hand, there are encouraging events, for example recently when in a London subway, a Muslim woman protected a Jewish family that was being verbally attacked.
Israel and Iran's game of cat and mouse (Ron Ben-Yishai, Ynet) The latest missile attack on Iranian targets near Damascus indicates the Revolutionary Guards have resumed with full force their attempts to militarily entrench themselves in the region, after a lull which stemmed from Russian pressure.
Armed With Cameras, Iraqi Protesters Are Shaping a Nation's Memory (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+VIDEO) From the modest part it had in the 2011 uprising, social media now sets the rules.
How Can 'Kill the Jew' and 'Sieg Heil' Really Mean 'anti-Israel Sentiment'? (Eric Hassall, Haaretz+) All evidence past and present points to powerful and prevalent anti-Semitic forces at work in South Africa. The Jewish community's representatives, though, are in desperate denial.

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