66.
--Percentage of land that Israel Lands Authority auctioned off in January was actually over the Green Line. ILA owns 90% of the land inside Israel.*

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Front Page:

Facing Blowback From Annexation (Avner Gvaryahu, Haaretz+) In the discussions last week about annexing the Jordan Valley, Benjamin Netanyahu told security officials the following incredible thing: “My decision, as the statesman, is to annex the valley. Your job is to deal with the consequences, if there are any.” In one fell swoop, with one sentence, Netanyahu refuted the oldest and most effective lie regarding the occupation – that it’s necessary for security. Security, it seems, is only a consideration when one wants to send soldiers to die for the status quo or for a politician’s survival. But when you want to annex, you can throw the status quo out the window.
What haven't you been told about the Plan of the Century (Gilad Sher and Prof. Gideon Bigger, Yedioth Hebrew) The puzzling drawing of the borders that Trump's team made creates a twisting and complicated friction area and border lines that can't be protected. And that's before the issue of ignoring the other side or the annexation or the immense damage to Israel's fundamental vision as a Jewish, democratic, secure and moral state, with recognized and safe borders and international legitimacy. The territorial solution in a permanent settlement, if and when it arrives, will not necessarily be according to one plan or another. It will be diplomatic, between the parties. The boundary issue - like the other core issues - requires in-depth thinking…a step-by-step approach, and of course negotiation in direct dialogue or through coordinated independent actions.
Requiem to the Apartheid Argument (Gadi Taub, Haaretz+) The argument from the left that annexation of parts of the West Bank would make Israel an apartheid state has lost both its moral and political force, and survives mainly today as a form of virtue signaling.
Trump's plan and the 'apartheid' lie (Dr. Shuki Friedman, Israel Hayom) The Palestinians and their supporters seem to believe that repeating a lie enough times will make it true. Now that the US peace plan has been released, they are trying to undermine it by using the same tactics.
Municipal taxes and Industry - The weak point of Arab municipalities (Ahmed Iyad, Ynet Hebrew)  The Catch 22 of the Arab sector: The problems in Arab society require treatment that costs money, but the poverty of the residents doesn’t allow sufficient tax collection to finance the moves. The deficit of a local municipal council that provides a basket of services to its residents, but which is in budget deficit, must be distinguished from a local municipal council which is in economic collapse and is unable to provide a reasonable services. But one way or another, the economic weakness of the Arab local municipal authorities directly affects all areas of everyday life - education, culture, infrastructure, environmental quality and the quality of life of the residents. Therefore, the lack of budgets makes it difficult for the authorities to implement broad-based programs - educational and otherwise - to eliminate the phenomenon of violence and for the use of other needs. A key part of the Arab local authorities' economic weakness is the lack of a sufficient base of municipal taxes. While many of those authorities manage to collect 80% and more of the municipal tax, this is not a sufficient amount, because most of them are collected for housing and not for businesses, and due to the extent of poverty (in the Arab sector) many families are entitled to discounts. This forces authorities to rely on government balance stipend and support grants, and they don’t have the ability to fund special projects. Government decision 922 for economic development in Arab localities is a correct and important step, but it is not enough. Alongside that, industrial zones near the localities need to be established and factories need to be drawn to them, which will be an important source of both places of employment for residents and business municipal taxes. [NOTE: the municipal taxes are charged based on the square meter size of the property where the person lives or where the business is located. Business municipal tax rates are much higher per meter than residential municipal taxes, known in Hebrew as ‘arnona.’ - OH]
This Best-selling Saudi Novel Sheds Light on the Prospect of Normalization With Israel (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) Everyone expects a meeting between Bin Salman and Netanyahu – but public opinion in Saudi Arabia has not been won over yet.
Arab Oil Money Is Running Out, and Chaos Will Likely Follow (David Rosenberg, Haaretz+) Cash from the Gulf states has been smoothing over the roughest edges of the region’s failed economies. But the oil that paid for it won't last much longer.
Chance to expand sovereignty must be leveraged (Jacob Bardugo, Israel Hayom) The possibility of applying sovereignty to Judea and Samaria is suddenly seen as a political obstacle that could impede the Likud and Prime Minister Netanyahu in the polls, but that is not the case.
Netanyahu Just Set the New Starting Point for Future Israeli-Palestinian Talks (Tamir Pardo, Haaretz+) For 53 years, 13 of them with Benjamin Netanyahu at the helm, the Israeli leadership has refrained from applying Israeli sovereignty to the territories of the West Bank, arguing that it would then become a benchmark for future talks, which would see Israel compelled to make further territorial compromises. This made both settlement expansion, and the containment of controversial moves by settler groups, possible. And then, lo and behold, on January 28, 2020, an Israeli prime minister agreed to define the eastern border, to transfer 70 percent of the West Bank and 14 percent of sovereign Israeli territory to a future Palestinian state, and to making the West Bank and Gaza into a single political entity. History could remember Benjamin Netanyahu as the statesman that set a starting point for negotiations.
Israeli Arabs are Israeli, not Palestinian (Shakib Ali, Yedioth/Ynet) Raising the Palestinian flag in protest of the Trump peace plan was an act of solidarity, not identity; no one could remain indifferent as their brothers buckle under the weight of occupation, but we will not be handed over to a different country when we belong here.
Israel's History Police Doesn't Belong in the 21st Century (Haaretz Editorial)  The High Court of Justice is scheduled to hear a petition Monday morning filed by two Israeli historians, Dr. Nadav Kaplan and Dr. Shay Hazkani, who have reached an impasse in their efforts to complete their research. Dr. Kaplan is studying the murder of Israel Kastner in 1957, while Dr. Hazkani is writing about the riots in Haifa’s Wadi Salib neighborhood two years later. The Shin Bet security service is refusing to allow the two to examine documents in its archives connected to these sensitive, charged events, which were of undeniable public importance. In the state’s response to both cases, which were merged into one petition, it did not deny that many documents connected to these incidents remain hidden from the public. Moreover, there is so much material, the state fears that having it gone over by state employees before it is released would “divert” so much manpower that ongoing Shin Bet operations could be undermined. And if this wasn’t enough, the state, as it often does, continues to hide behind that eternal excuse of “state security,” which is hard to challenge for one simple reason: The material is classified, so there is no way to prove whether or not its publication would threaten state security. But past cases, in which archival material that had been hidden on “state security” grounds was finally released after lengthy struggles, have shown that this claim is often unwarranted.
Our European enemy (Victor Rosenthal, Israel Hayom) Are EU officials so foolish as to fail to understand that the funds that they provide to the Palestinian Authority are used to pay terrorists? I don’t believe it.
Drowning in His Own Racist Poison (Odeh Bisharat, Haaretz+) A few years ago I read an opinion piece in Yedioth Ahronoth by Yoaz Hendel (now a Knesset member for Kahol Lavan), in which he wrote that his grandfather used to tell him about having cut off the ears of Arabs during the war. Hendel did not express any disgust, did not repudiate the act and did not even really look into whether it had actually happened or not. It was just another cool story about grandpa’s heroism. Hendel wrote that his grandfather had reached the conclusion that “there’s us [the Jews], and there are those that hate us.” Thus, according to Hendel, the world is a cold place, a real jungle, with enemies all around waiting for the right moment to attack. If every nation would adopt this approach, we would be living in an endless Armageddon. Later, the man uttered a statement that echoed the horrible things that were voiced during Europe’s darkest times: “The Zionist interest is maximum territory with minimum Arabs.”… On Friday, in an interview with Ravit Hecht in the Hebrew edition of Haaretz, Hendel doubled down and presented his race theory on Arabs. First of all, let it be said that any remark about the inferiority of Arabs in effect also includes Mizrahim, who after all came from the jungle so detested by the grandson of the ear-slicer….Eventually, the leaders of Kahol Lavan woke up and asked Hendel to shut up. They did the right thing. They should have demanded long ago that he desist from his racist remarks. ..
It's just inherent racism (Ze'ev Avrahami, Ynet Hebrew) According to Yoaz Hendel, the Ashkenazi Israelis all came from the Opera House, and not from simple-minded farmers, while all the Mizrahim came from the backyard of the society in which they lived.
Stating faults of Arab culture isn't racist, ignoring them is (Ben-Dror Yemini, Yedioth/Ynet) MK Hendel's recent criticism of the Arab and Muslim cultures stoked the rage of the 'enlightened', but examining his words without the 'progressive spectacles', one could see who is the real racist.
The leftists who are trying to eliminate Benny Gantz (Dr. Baruch Leshem, Yedioth/Ynet Hebrew) While unconsciously cooperating with Netanyahu, the center-left people choose to attack the Kahol-Lavan chairman for his ambiguity and kindness. There is something they do not understand…Gantz's greatest talent, for some reason seen as a disadvantage in the eyes of the some, lies in his ability not to upset anyone. Did anyone think that Yair Lapid would be willing to serve as Number 2 under any politician and also give up rotation for the leadership?  Would Moshe Ya'alon and Gabi Ashkenazi be willing to relinquish to any other officer whom they were the commander of while serving in the army? This is not self-evident when one knows the generals' rigor about their seniority. Gantz's easygoing temperament and his ability to restrain disagreements and incarcerate anger have enabled Kahol-Lavan to create the best leadership of a party in the current election campaign: Gantz as Prime Minister, Ashkenazi as Minister of Defense, Lapid as Foreign Minister and Yaalon as Minister of Education…
The Israeli Left’s Bad Choice of Heroes (Israel Harel, Haaretz+) In his op-ed Sunday “The left’s messianic stage,” Aluf Benn rubs salt into the left’s wounds: “Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ has delivered a knockout blow to the Israeli left.” And why? Because it placed its trust in “the Messiah,” namely “the world.” This Messiah..never came…With the exception of sliding over into violent means, namely a civil war, the left has done everything to promote a Palestinian state. The reason why until now this “everything” has been unable to achieve the sacred objective, is due to one small (repressed) fact: The Palestinians’ primary goal – which takes priority over the establishment of a state for themselves – is to bring an end to the Jewish state.


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