Death and taxes at the Games

The country’s leading Hebrew-language papers take advantage of the relative lull in significant breaking news in the world and across the country and instead choose to pursue reports on the Israeli Olympic delegation, crime related to stolen IDF weapons, and the revelation of Palestinian child beggar rings in the north.

Yedioth Ahronoth leads with a near full-page story on the participation of Israeli representatives at the Rio 2016 Olympics in a memorial ceremony for 11 Israeli athletes who were murdered by terrorists at the Munich Olympics 44 years ago. The paper stresses that the ceremony at the Rio Olympics was the first of its kind, since the International Olympic Committee has never before authorized holding an official memorial event at the games. The commemoration at Rio De Janeiro city hall was attended by family members of the Israeli victims and Olympic officials from Israel and Brazil. “I am here now and feel that my victory here is for you,” the paper quotes Israeli Judoka Or Sasson as saying. Sasson on Friday beat Cuba’s Alex Maxell Garcia Mendoza to win the bronze medal in the men’s over-100kg competition at the Rio Games.

Remaining on the topic of Israeli Olympic athletes, Yedioth further reports that though Sasson and fellow Israeli bronze medal winner Yarden Gerbi each received the hefty sum of NIS 250,000 for their achievements at Rio, a whopping 34%-48% of the earnings will be seized by Israeli tax authorities, in line with government policy on large payments to citizens abroad. The head of the Authority, in response to questions on the matter by Yedioth, notes dryly that “even for [Gerbi and Sasson] we cannot make any exception and deviate from the law” regarding tax collection.

In Israel Hayom, the front page cries out that a recent survey found that most of the crime-related assassinations and assassination attempts in the country were carried out with weapons and ammunition stolen from IDF bases or from soldiers on leave at their homes. According to the paper, among the 1,284 violent acts committed on criminal grounds in the past year, 1,004 had involved stolen military equipment. On the bright side, the paper reports, 2,700 such acts were thwarted by police. The army, for its part, stresses that it is doing everything it can in order to curb the theft of arms from military personnel.

Meanwhile, Haaretz leads with a report on the spread of child beggars and child labor rings operating around Arab-Israeli communities in the north. According to the report, children from the age of seven to their early teens are being used more and more frequently by illegal contractors, collecting change or selling cheap knock-off products to local drivers. Early this month, MKs from the Kulanu party and from the Zionist Union attempted to collaborate with representatives of the Palestinian Authorities’ labor division in an effort to bring an end to the phenomenon. The collaboration is the first of its kind aimed at dealing and helping the children, though results so far have been scarce, and many kids are still being illegally used for the contractor’s’ moneymaking scheme.

Finally, Israel Hayom reports that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has requested help from Arab-Israeli MKs in order to realize a renewed reconciliation effort between the Fatah faction and the Hamas terrorist organization in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Israel Hayom chooses to focus on whether Arab-Israeli representatives will heed the request, made during a meeting in Ramallah, and effectively “launch talks with the [Hamas] terrorist organization.” According to the paper, during the meeting Abbas stressed his unequivocal commitment to stopping a third intifada from erupting in the region, and added that he was willing to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “anytime, anywhere,” in order to relaunch peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.