Heroes past and present

Israel loves its military heroes. Stories of calm and determination under fire play a major role in the national ethos. Entire careers have been built on daring wartime exploits. Add to that the fact that the current hero is a young woman who looks good posing atop a jeep in full combat kit and you get today’s Yedioth Ahronoth front page.

“I charged ahead and thought of my parents,” recalls corporal S., a female soldier who shot a terrorist dead in Friday’s attack on the Egyptian border. This and other recollections from the battle, in which an Israeli soldier and three terrorists were killed, take up all of Yedioth’s front page as well as a double-page spread on Pages 2 and 3. S. comes across in the article as a thoughtful and modest person, refusing to take any credit for herself, adamant that she had only done her job and complimenting the performance of her fellow Caracal battalion unit members.

Photos of S. and quotes from her parents, commanders and friends appear also in Maariv and Israel Hayom.

Israel Hayom’s top story previews excerpts from a special Yom Kippur interview with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and reveal his proposal for a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank. Barak suggests that it’s time Israel makes a clean break from the decades-long dispute. His plan would see 80 to 90 percent of the Jewish population move to or remain in settlement blocs that would be annexed to Israel, with the others either abandoning their homes, or, if they elect, staying put and living under Palestinian rule.

“Though it would be better to reach agreements with the Palestinians, if it doesn’t work we must take practical steps to initiate separation,” says Barak.

Haaretz‘s top front page story also looks at Israel-PA relations, but while Barak talks about disengagement, the Haaretz story reports on efforts by Jerusalem to boost the Abbas government through a package of money transfers, work visas and construction permits. The moves, initiated and approved by the same Ehud Barak, aim to ease financial hardships in the West Bank, which Israel fears may destabilize the PA’s grip on power or escalate into a popular uprising that Israel will surely suffer from.

Iran continues to make front page headlines today with threats of a preemptive attack against Israel. Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who heads the missile command for the Revolutionary Guards, said in an interview yesterday, “In circumstances in which [the Israelis] have prepared everything for an attack, it is possible that we will make a pre-emptive attack,” adding that Iran would also attack US bases in the region, saying that the ensuing military engagement would “turn into World War III.” The story apears on the front page of both Haaretz and Israel Hayom.

Maariv prefers to look to the future. Its lead story reports on Israeli-US preparations for the upcoming UN meeting and the two countries efforts at establishing red lines for Iran, without US President Barack Obama having to use the phrase and thus appear to have capitulated to Israel’s demands. The article states that senior officials from both countries have been holding meetings to agree on the language that Obama will use in his adress on Tuesday.

Maariv’s second front page story reports on the paper’s own predicaments, featuring a quote by a Tel Aviv District Court Judge Varda stating that their is a public interest in saving the paper from mass layoffs.  The court ruled yesterday to freeze all procedures regarding the sale of Maariv and the workers pledged to cease their strike in order to help publish the Yom Kippur edition that comes out Tuesday.

Yom Kippur revisited

In the opinion pages, the approach of Yom Kippur makes a perfect opportunity to draw parallels between 1973 and today.

In Yedioth, Elyakim Haetzni writes that while in ’73 Israel accepted US dictates and failed to launch a preemptive attack against Egypt, today Israel is freer to act against Iran, but has less of an interest in doing so. Heatzni argues that the Iran’s real standoff is with the US and Saudi Arabia, not Israel, and that if the prime minister has reason to believe otherwise and chooses to go it alone, he must convince the Israeli public that it is now time to do what wasn’t done in 73.

In Maariv, Amos Gilboa writes about Israel’s 1973 intelligence failure as being the result of mistakenly thinking that our enemy was a rational actor that would operate according to its best interests. He writes that when the backlash of that mistake hit Israel with full and tragic force in the battlefield, it nearly devastated the country’s morale. He concludes by issuing a warning against making the same mistakes in the future.