Hebrew media review

Are we in an intifada yet?

Twin attacks have one paper declaring a ‘wave of terror,’ while Netanyahu’s gas bypass impasse becomes a political fiasco

Joshua Davidovich is The Times of Israel's Deputy Editor

An Israeli wounded in a drive-by shooting attack is brought to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, June 29, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
An Israeli wounded in a drive-by shooting attack is brought to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, June 29, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

After a day that was bookended by two Palestinian attacks on Israelis, it’s no surprise that much of the press focus on Tuesday is centered on the security situation, though the timing of the second attack near papers’ midnight deadlines means readers are spared yet another round of “are we in an intifada yet.”

Readers are also spared anything more than a smidgen of information about the attack, in which four Israelis were shot from a passing car on a West Bank highway.

That doesn’t stop Yedioth Ahronoth from declaring the onset of a “wave of terror” with its alarmist front page, glomming the shooting onto the morning stabbing of a soldier near Bethlehem and a fatal West Bank shooting on Friday.

Even usually nuanced less-than-yellow lady Haaretz calls both of Monday’s attacks piguim, a loaded Hebrew term which roughly translates to terror attack, despite the fact that the first one was directed against a member of the armed forces and not a civilian.

In Israel Hayom, acting Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan says Israeli settlers are not ready to watch the security situation continue to get worse, “as it has in the south.”

“We need to cut off this trend before the situations deteriorates even further,” he says. “We won’t let terrorists harm our citizens, and we demand the Israeli government allow the IDF to act without mercy against the savages who turn civilians into targets.”

While the terror attacks bleed, and thus lead, the controversial gas deal gets more than its fair share of coverage, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to end-around an anti-trust ruling against an energy partnership appears to fall apart without necessary Knesset support.

Yedioth calls lawmakers balking on the vote an “imbroglio,” and seems all too happy to point out that the “Prime minister discovers once again how bad it is with a majority of 61.”

Key to the plan’s passage in the Knesset had been the support of Yisrael Beytenu from the opposition, but the paper quotes party honcho Avigdor Liberman as saying that while he believes in the measure to get the gas flowing with all his heart, he doesn’t like the way Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to push it through.

That’s not to say he has recently become a bleeding heart hippie, though, as the tabloid cites him going after the left wing for also opposing the deal, calling them the wonderfully redundant “populist Bolsheviks.”

“It’s no coincidence that there is complete overlap between the radical left, activists from Breaking the Silence, Yesh Din, Yesh Dayan, Yesh Gvul, Yesh Crap-all, and those who are leading the campaign against the gas. Those who always support the Palestinians are those who are against the gas,” he’s quoted saying.

In Israel Hayom, Moti Tuchfeld takes a stance against the politicians who oppose Netanyahu’s gas play just to look like they are being socially minded, taking a potshot at the dimwitted Yossi Schmos of the country and reserving special opprobrium for Liberman, who, he says, accuses the left of Bolshevism but prefers to stand by their side to make Netanyahu’s life harder.

“While most Israelis’ knowledge of the gas industry extends to how much it costs for a new canister of cooking gas, the politicians are distancing themselves from the deal in order so they won’t, heaven forfend, be seen as fighting on the side of personalities as unpopular as [Delek owner] Yitzhak Tshuva and the gas barons.”

Haaretz reports that lawmakers from the Joint List of Arab factions say they were pressured by the US Embassy to vote against the opposition and for the gas deal. The paper writes that lawmakers got telephone messages from the embassy “expressing hope” that they would vote for the gas deal, which would provide energy for Jordan and the Palestinians too.

While it wasn’t clear if this was an official message from the embassy, and the mission didn’t comment on the accusations, the paper notes that the man at the head of US diplomacy, Secretary of State John Kerry, did until recently have a major stake in Noble Energy, one half of the partnership hoping to exploit Israel’s gas reserves.

Even if Israel can’t come through on a gas deal with Jordan, Haaretz reports that Jerusalem and Amman are looking to shake on reopening the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque to non-Muslim visitors for the first time in 15 years.

According to the report, the idea would be to keep tensions on the holy site from boiling over by making it more Disneyland and less Jurassic World.

“Israel, which controls security on the mount, including entrance to it, believes that opening the mosques to paying visitors would give the Muslim Waqf, which manages the site’s day-to-day religious affairs, an incentive to keep the peace on the mount,” the paper writes, noting that such was the practice until the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000.

While Israel and Jordan hash out who has what rights to visit where, Yedioth reports that an Israeli community of another stripe is fighting for equal rights after watching American homosexuals win the right to marry from the Supreme Court late last week.

The paper writes that the Israeli National LGBT Task Force (more popularly known as the Aguda) sent an urgent letter Monday to the attorney general and Knesset speaker, among others, requesting that a law be drafted with 45 days to also enshrine their right to marry in Israel.

“The lack of ability for couples of men and women of the same sex to marry in Israel is unwarranted discrimination which is prohibited by law and violates the basic rights of the individual,” the letter reads, according to the paper.

The US may have done right by the gay community, but to former national security adviser Yaakov Amidror, they are about to do very wrong by Israel and the world, by giving in to Iran due to their obsession with coming to an agreement on nuclear enrichment at any cost.

“The Americans want, really, really want, an agreement, more than the Iranians need it, and the Iranians need it a ton,” he writes in Israel Hayom. “The US is far from the stance of the secretary of state, that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal.’ The thinking today is that ‘any deal that’s presented is better than no deal,’ and thus they are ready to show flexibility on anything the Iranians demand, who realize this and are not afraid to up the price.”

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