Losses and liabilities

The passing of cultural icon Yoram Kaniuk and the national soccer team’s defeat are lamented by Sunday’s Hebrew dailies, while the papers also report on the recently uncovered PRISM project in the US, Russia’s suggestion to use its soldiers as peacekeepers in the Golan Heights, and the pride parade in Tel Aviv.

Yedioth Ahronoth dedicates most of its front page to the pride parade held in Tel Aviv Friday, which attracted more than 100,000 people and was named the largest event of its kind in the country’s history. It juxtaposes new details from the breakthrough in the investigation of the Bar Noar murders four years ago in which a gunman fired at a gay youth center and killed two people. Among those arrested by police is a prominent member of the LGBT community, and Yedioth reports, “He knew the murderers at the Bar Noar planned on attacking him because of an offense he committed, and he hid the information for four years.”

“The UN is examining changing the terms of the ceasefire between Israel and Syria,” reads Maariv‘s main headline. The paper reports an offer by Russian President Vladimir Putin for Russian troops to replace the Austrian soldiers set to withdraw from the peacekeeping mission to the Golan Heights. A clause in the ceasefire doesn’t allow Russian or American soldiers to be the ones monitoring the situations, and the UN Security Council decided to ask for legal advice on the possibility of changing that clause.

Israel has also expressed its objection to Putin’s suggestion, the paper writes. Officials in Jerusalem view the Russians as not neutral in the region, and also fear they would use their new position to strengthen their hold in Syria and spy on Israel’s activities.

Besides the Russian offer, Maariv also reports that Israel has demanded Syria withdraw its tanks and armored personnel carriers from the buffer zone in Quneitra, saying it was a violation of the agreements and warning that a reluctance to comply would “force Israel to act.”

The US government’s use of Internet services to collect intelligence and information about citizens leads Haaretz‘s front page. According to the report, the National Security Agency had access to databases from web giants such as Google and Facebook, and also to information gathered by software companies like Microsoft and Apple.

“You can’t have 100 percent security and at the same time enjoy 100% privacy and no discomfort,” US President Barack Obama said after the case blew open. Reportedly called PRISM, the program — leaked on Friday — gave the government agency the ability to collect information and monitor the activities of hundreds of millions of people. Officials claimed that the information gathered had indeed prevented terror attacks on American soil.

Israel Hayom, too, dedicates its top headline to the PRISM question, but most of the tabloid’s front page and the first inner pages are dedicated to Nochi Dankner, IDB and the never-ending story of debt settlement.

The conglomerate, one of the largest in Israel, is in debt to the tune of some NIS 9 billion ($2.44 billion) and a Tel Aviv judge will give his verdict Sunday. Hezi Sternlicht, a leading economic columnist for the Hebrew daily, lays out the top three options facing Dankner and the stockholders.

Granting the current leadership at IDB a few more months of grace to find an investor and get funds for the company is the likeliest scenario, Sternlicht writes. Alternatively — and less likely — judge Eitan Orenstein could decide to reduce the power of Dankner and the other members of the board, and give the court’s representative more tools and authority over decisions made. The least likely option, he says, is the court giving a green light to the shareholders’ request to oust Dankner and take over the company.

A recent interview given by Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon to The Times of Israel stirred up the political system, as the papers report pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sack him for saying the current government would block any move toward a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

MK Isaac Herzog (Labor Party) told Maariv that Danon’s statements are worrisome and have “a condescending tone” toward Netanyahu and the Knesset. An unnamed source in the Prime Minister’s Office was quoted by Israel Hayom as saying Danon’s comments “don’t represent” the position of Netanyahu or the government.

Israel’s Under-21 soccer team lost any realistic chance of advancing to the semifinals of UEFA’s U21 Championship tournament after it was defeated by Italy 4-0 Saturday night.

“The defeat has nothing to do with the calling up [of certain players]; it’s because of the different levels the teams play at,” Uri Cooper writes in Yedioth’s sports section. “Efficiency,” that’s how you can sum up the difference between the teams, charges the columnist.

All Israel’s leading dailies mourn the loss of Yoram Kaniuk, one of the country’s most prominent authors and vocal critics of government policies, who died Saturday at age 83. “I’m happy he was sharp and sober and funny until the last moment,” his daughter Neomi was quoted by Yedioth as saying.

“Every canon needs an anarchist who will bother it; every group focused on a goal needs an individual who will break it up from within. Otherwise, the game is sold, the results known from the start,” Omer Lachmanovich writes in Israel Hayom. “Kaniuk understood this equation and kept himself only to himself.”

Kaniuk, Lachmanovich describes, had many friends but no followers. He was a man of principles who wrote according to his gut and not by what the public demanded. “He had the spirit of a teen living on the street,” a member of the Palmach who had touched fame and been unchanged.

“Yoram Kaniuk,” he ends his column,” was an author, man-child, warrior-rascal, rejected and loved. But more than all, as he wrote, he was ‘too alive to be apathetic.'”