News Nosh 12.24.14

by APN 12/24/14
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APN's daily news review from Israel

Wednesday December 24, 2014
 

Quote of the day:

“I’m a soldier in the army of conscience/I’ll shoot you with bullets of poetry/I’ll assassinate you with a monologue/I’ll commit suicide with the bomb of a dance troupe and I’ll torture you with the beat of drums/”
--Lyrics from the song ‘Search Me’ by Israeli-Arab rappers Wala Sabit and Jowan Safadi who fought for two years against charges of incitement to violence and support for a terror organization based on the song until they were declared ‘not guilty.’**


Breaking News:
One Palestinian militant was killed in heavy firefights with Israeli forces along the Gaza Strip edge. Israel used artillery and aircraft to fire on the Palestinians. Hamas said the head of the local reconnaissance unit in the southern Gaza Strip was killed. The IDF said that the Palestinians started it. [Haaretz’s military affairs reporter Gili Cohen reported as fact that the Palestinians were first to open fire. Ynet’s Yoav Zitun wrote “According to the IDF...” Palestinian sources told Ynet that Hamas has begun clearing its outposts and sending its commanders into hiding, fearing retaliatory IDF targeted killings. The IDF ordered farmers in the Eskhol Regional Council to cease all work next to the Gaza border fence. This comes one day after Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said “Hamas does not want an escalation...This means that Hamas has been deterred." (Maariv)

Front Page:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

Israel Hayom

  • Broke the monopoly – Following the gas uproar: Teshuva’s stocks fell by 16.5%
  • Israel and the drama in the energy sector – questions and answers
  • “We did not go back to the Wailing Wall in order to reach it with an APC” – PM Netanyahu puts Jerusalem in the center of the elections campaign
  • The money path – Navigator at Haifa port earns as much as the Chief of Staff
  • Ynet’s thriller show // Itsik Saban
  • After the hit-and-runs: Shots at Paris synagogue, soldiers deployed in French cities
  • High tension: Electricity Co. employees announced sudden general strike
  • Israeli pride: Yishai Uliel won the prestigious tennis champion for aged 14 and under

 

News Summary:
Wednesday’s top stories in the Hebrew press focused on the Anti-Trust Authority decision to end the monopoly on natural gas. The high salaries of some people working in the civil service and the latest election declarations – now on the subject of Jerusalem. Days after Labor and Hatnuah leaders, Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, visited the Wailing Wall and declared that the place holy to Jews would always remain part of Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said ‘all of Jerusalem’ (meaning including E. Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their capital) would remain Israel’s capital and slammed Livni and Herzog by saying that Israel could not have access to the Wailing Wall if it gave up E. Jerusalem: “How exactly will we get there, in a convoy? In helicopters? Maybe in armored personnel carriers?” [Note: There are dozens of proposals on how to divide Jerusalem that don't require convoys or helicopters. - OH]
 
Haaretz+ reported that the Palestinians have changed the draft of their UN resolution to include East Jerusalem as their capital. The resolution calls for or an end to the occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state. This comes following disagreements voiced recently by different Palestinian parties and leaders, including Marwan Barghouti and Hamas, over the previous draft, which Hamas said, “does not represent the consensus of the Palestinian people.”
 
What was not mentioned, except in Maan, was that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that if the UN resolution fails, “we will no more deal with the Israeli government, which will then be obliged to assume its responsibilities as an occupier.”
 
Haaretz’s Barak Ravid also reported as an ‘exclusive’ that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Netanyahu's approach of maintaining the status quo has failed and that Israel needs a peace deal. He also said he would not rule out becoming prime minister. [It is not news that Lieberman is in favor of a diplomatic agreement. However, the one he has said he wants requires a transfer of land with the Arab Israelis living on it to the future Palestinian state in exchange for other lands, rather than a Palestinian state based on the ’67 borders. This is not acceptable to either the Israeli Arabs or the Palestinian Authority. - OH]
 

Quick Hits:

  • Interior minister: Israeli Arab suspected of fighting alongside ISIS may lose citizenship - Attorney for Nazareth man who fought in Iraq, but has not been charged: As part of caretaker gov't, Minister Erdan 'shouldn't make such a fateful decision.' (Haaretz+)
  • Anger in Israel after 'Homeland' compares Begin to terrorist - Ex-CIA director compares former Israeli prime minister Begin to Taliban leader in fictional drama series adapted from Israeli TV show. (Ynet)
  • IDF jails soldier suspected of planning terror attack against Palestinians - IDF soldier sentenced to 28 days in military prison, banned from Judea and Samaria on suspicion of plotting an attack, after taking a weapon from the base without permission and attending a memorial for extremist militant Rabbi Meir Kahane. (Israel Hayom Tuesday)
  • **Two Israeli Arab rappers cleared of incitement charges - Wala Sabit and Jowan Safadi charged with incitement to violence and support for a terror organization in songs they performed in 2010. (Haaretz+)
  • Israel charges 8 Palestinians over Facebook posts - Among the remarks posted online were "It is good to kidnap soldiers", "Zionists flee because you'll soon be killed by a car" and words expressing hope that a right-wing Jewish activist, who survived an assassination attempt in October, would die a painful death, the indictment said. (Maan) 
  • Israel issues demolition orders to East Jerusalem homes - Akram al-Shurafa told Ma'an that his home in al-Tur, which was built in 1938 and inherited from his grandparents, was slated for demolition. Al-Shurafa says the demolition order is a way of targeting him after he was recently exiled from the city of Jerusalem for five months, together with four other Palestinian community activists. No reason given for exile. (Maan)
  • Israel to halt most gas-mask production due to decline in chemical weapon threat - Soldiers, excluding first responders, will also cease to receive gas masks; Low risk of chemical attack and need to economize cited in decision. (Haaretz)
  • Ancient clay seals reinforce biblical account of early Israel kings - Artifacts thought to date from Iron Age hint at city-state government in area previously believed to be entirely rural. (Agencies, Ynet)
  • Palestinian prisoner dies in PA police custody - Osama Rafiq al-Shaer, 37, was being held on drug charges and had been held in a PA jail for 15 days. He collapsed at 7 a.m. Tuesdasy and was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. (Maan)
  • Israeli arms-trade middlemen still unsupervised, despite law - Go-betweens are said to be active in arms deals with countries in South America, Africa and parts of Asia. However, figures are unclear because even the defense establishment keeps no records regarding intermediaries. (Haaretz+) 
  • Petition: Disqualify Ronen Shoval from running for Knesset: “He displays principles of fascism" - The petitioner, Uri Zaki, argues that the court ruled that the organization he founded, Im Tirtzu, has certain principles in common with the fundamentals of fascism. Shuval: "The left-wing can jump in a lake.” (Maariv)
  • Worth and equal to every vote – Only 56% of Arabs in Israel eligible to vote actually vote. A new project by the Ma’ase organization, which runs programs for Arab and Druze youth, calls on Arabs and Druze: Vote. (Yedioth, p. 6)
  • Habayit Hayehudi head says Ynet site lied about appointment - Ynet reports that Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett appointed journalist Haim Hecht to Economy and Trade Ministry post after Hecht endorsed him. Bennett: Appointment was made by my predecessor, a member of the Labor Party, I had no involvement. (Israel Hayom)
  • Israel gets ready to welcome 70,000 visitors for Christmas - Tourism Ministry has invested close to NIS 100 million in developing and maintaining Christian sites in Israel to enrich the pilgrim's spiritual experience. (Ynet) 
  • Israeli forces suppress Christmas march in Bethlehem - Demonstrators marched Tuesday to Israeli military checkpoint in northern Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas and hand out gifts to children in the area, holding up signs reading: "Jesus came with a message of: Peace, Freedom and Justice" and "We want Christmas without occupation." Israeli forces prevented demonstrators, some dressed as Santa, from reaching checkpoint and fired tear gas at crowd. (Maan)
  • Activists garnish Bethlehem tree with Israeli gas canisters - Palestinian activists on Tuesday garnished a Christmas tree in Bethlehem's Manger Square with leftover Israeli tear gas canisters and stun grenades from routine clashes in the city. (Maan)
  • Jesus' birthplace grapples with modern traffic challenges - Tunnel proposed to combat ubiquitous gridlock, which peaks around Christmas time. (Agencies, Ynet)
  • Tel Aviv sets dreidel-spinning world record - As another Hanukkah comes to an end, 754 Israelis manage to spin their dreidels simultaneously for at least 10 seconds. (Ynet)
  • Israel cracks down on shop owners in Jerusalem's Old City - Palestinian shop owners say Israel's Jerusalem municipality is issuing heavy fines on business owners and harassing workers at businesses in E. Jerusalem's Old City. "They hurled a stun grenade and a tear gas canister inside the restaurant without showing an inspection warrant," said Imad al-Shawish, a restaurant owner. (Maan)
  • Israel allows 400 trucks of food and fuel supplies into Gaza - The delivery included 100 trucks of materials for Qatari-funded infrastructure projects. (Maan)
  • Rafah open for 3rd day as thousands wait to cross - Egyptian authorities kept the Rafah crossing with Gaza open for the third day on Tuesday, as waiting lists to use the terminal exceed 30,000. Egypt has only opened the crossing twice in two months. Huhair Samir has been trying to reach her husband in Canada for nearly a year. (Maan) 
  • Satellite images show 290 heritage sites in Syria damaged by war - Both Assad forces and rebels use ancient fortresses as military bases, causing them damage in heavy bombardments; radical Sunni insurgents destroyed ancient sites they considered heretical. (Agencies, Ynet)


Features:

Hippocratic Oath trumps security fears at Israeli hospitals
On one floor a young Palestinian terrorist is treated. On another, staff care for a victim of a terror attack. Despite this surreal situation at Hadassah Hospital and other Israeli medical centers, the doctors would not have it any other way. (Danna Harman, Haaretz) 
A Kuwaiti Muslim’s journey to Judaism
'I grew up hating Jews but today I find it an honor to belong to the Jewish nation,' says Mark Halawa, who was born to Muslim parents, but whose maternal grandmother was Jewish. (Ynet)
After the war, a bittersweet Christmas in Gaza
A garland in hand, 11-year-old Sara decorates the family Christmas tree with her parents. But this year, the young Palestinian in Gaza will be spending the rest of the holiday alone. Her parents received Israeli permits to leave the Gaza Strip and travel to Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas, but she and her older brother and sister did not.  This year, Israel granted around 500 permits to Palestinian Christians. (Maan)
 
Commentary/Analysis:

The logic of Abbas the monarch, subcontractor of the occupation (Amira Hass, Haaretz+) Abbas’ sane warning against falling into the trap of war evaporates due to his dictatorial conduct. 
Netanyahu using Auschwitz to feed Israeli anxiety (Ze'ev Tzahor, Yedioth/Ynet) Purpose of bringing up Holocaust is to remind us that we are an eternal victim; but that will not stop any parliament from recognizing Palestine.
And what if Israel were to recognize Palestine? (Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz+) Should Israel negotiate with a Palestinian state or with the PA? The first one’s never been tried, so it’s worth a shot.
When did Livni become the right's greatest threat? (Yoaz Hendel, Yedioth/Ynet) The attacks on Tzipi Livni on every possible platform are only upgrading her; when the Likud did the same thing to Naftali Bennett in the previous elections, it actually strengthened his party.
Lieberman gives pragmatism a bad name (Avi Shilon, Haaretz) Lieberman’s worldview is based on the idea that life, and politics, is a game.
Beware of manipulated poverty reports (Hezi Sternlicht, Israel Hayom) No one denies the gravity of poverty in Israel or the need to fight it, but the media ruckus over recent statistics wrongs the cause.
Herzog and Livni: The bulldozer and the nerd (Yoni Livne, Yedioth/Ynet) Israeli politicians have chosen to act like reality stars - with the most agressive receiving the most votes.
Obama stops faking Israel policy (Richard Baehr, Israel Hayom) Kerry, with advice from Peres and Livni, is persuading the Europeans and Palestinians to wait until ‎after the election, when, hint, hint, a friendlier government may be in place.
Probe of Givati Brigade chief is not about his kippa (Amos Harel, Haaretz+) Attempts to portray the Givati scandal as a deliberate political attack on an outstanding combat officer just because he is religious are unfounded. But even assuming the criminal case against commander Col. Ofer Winter is indeed closed, the allegations against him as a commander are much more serious. 
Why is the Likud degrading its voters? (Ben-Dror Yemini, Yedioth/Ynet) According to the ruling party's logic, the way to gain more support in the polls is through diplomatic blows to Israel. 
In the 1970s, Hillel was more 'open' than today (Paul S. Laderman, Haaretz+) Although I have always been an active Zionist, I doubt if I would have chosen to become a Hillel director in the 1970s were the current guidelines binding then.
 

Interviews: 

Clinton: Rabin inspired trust even in Arafat
President Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States and Founder of the Clinton Foundation, has agreed to answer questions concerning his involvement in the peace process and to share stories about his special relationship with the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. His answers were published in Yedioth Ahronoth's special 75th anniversary issue. (Yedioth/Ynet

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

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