Don’t worry, be… actually, go ahead and worry

Having Israeli papers filled with worries is nothing new, but Sunday’s dailies show that qualms need not be relegated to the classic trio of terrorism, democracy and total annihilation. Instead the papers Sunday are peppered with fears about an Assad victory in Syria, a so-called fifth column of Arab MKs, arson against a synagogue in the heart of the West Bank, and a return to Temple Mount-inspired violence.

Haaretz is the only paper to lead with Syria, calling the Syrian regime’s “near siege” in Aleppo a turning point and reporting that masses are fleeing the northern city which has been mostly in rebel hands for the last several years. The paper quotes a Turkish official saying 70,000 refugees are expected at the border in the next few days.

The paper’s Anshel Pfeffer writes that the fall of rebel-held Aleppo would be a “major blow to the rebels,” and if the regime and its allies keep pushing they could eventually see their interests dovetailing with those of the West.

“From the perspective of the regime and its allies, now is the time to press forward its advantage, complete the siege of Aleppo and reduce the rebels to isolated and besieged pockets of resistance,” he writes. “At that point, Assad, or more likely his Russian and Iranian patrons, can decide whether they want to try and wipe out the rebels or redirect some of their resources to bombing IS, which has not been the main focus of their efforts. Then, their interests will coincide with those of the West, which has only been targeting the Islamic State, which threatens the West with a wave of terror.”

To Israel Hayom’s Boaz Bismuth, the fall of Aleppo is just another black mark against US President Barack Obama.

“Unlike the rebels, Assad can count on his partners. On Assad’s side, backed by Russia, they act. On the rebels’ side, backed by America, they talk. This maybe explains why in January 2017 Obama will leave the White House, but Assad will still be president. Another legacy for the beautiful collection of the American president,” he writes, apparently forgetting that Obama won’t be there because of a little thing called term limits, something his newspaper’s idol, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now on his fourth term, knows little about.

Netanyahu seems no more knowledgeable over what to do about Arab MKs who visited the families of Palestinian terrorists. The confusion doesn’t end with how much support they offered the families — whether it was just a meeting or a moment of silence as well — but also whether there is any action that can be taken against them, given their Knesset immunity.

Yedioth reports that Netanyahu has asked newly minted Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to look into what steps can be taken against the three Balad lawmakers, but if he can’t do anything, then the only recourse will be taking them to the Knesset Ethics Committee, which has the teeth of a 90-year-old British person.

“If the case goes to the Ethics Committee, the harshest punishment it can hand out is to ban them from parliamentary activity for half a year, not including votes,” the paper reports.

Perhaps their punishment should just be to be berated by Israel Hayom’s Haim Shine, who serves them up a barn burner of a tongue lashing, calling them “traitors” and asking how they would be received in London or Washington, in a strangely prescient preview of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet speech Sunday morning.

At least, he writes, Israel is rallying against the treacherous trio.
“We should praise the surprising Israeli unity in response to the meeting. Left and right have joined together, internalizing that this time it is too much. There comes a point at which Jews realize the severity of the problem and join together to solve it,” he writes.

Shine’s Kumbaya moment is somewhat ruined by Haaretz’s lead editorial, which, while not defending the MKs per se, supports the reason behind their meeting with the terrorists’ families: getting bodies back.

“Directing anger at the MKs who met the families – who aren’t to blame for their sons’ acts – obscures the real issue: holding the assailants’ bodies and preventing their burial,” the paper writes.

At least most Jews can probably rally around disgust at the burning of holy books, as happened in the West Bank over the weekend at a tent-cum-synagogue in the West Bank.

The story leads off Yedioth, which apparently never met a pun it didn’t like, crowning the story with the headline “Burning hatred.”

The paper notes that the synagogue was set up near the field where the bodies of three kidnapped and murdered teens were discovered in 2014, and cites residents of nearby Karmei Tzur, who set up the prayer tent, saying that the arsonists made a pile of prayer books which they burned, causing the whole place to go up.

Unsurprisingly, somebody brings up Heinrich Heine’s quote that “where they burn books they will burn people,” in this case Bat-Galim Shaer, the mother of one of the three teens.

“An injury to Torah books is like an injury to the soul of the Jewish people,” she’s quoted writing on Facebook. “We will continue to choose life and bolster the spirit of the Jewish people to make it stronger than ever.”

As for burning actual people, or at least doing other bad things to them, that can soon be in the offing according to Haaretz, which reports that Israeli-Jordanian quibbling is delaying an agreement meant to calm Temple Mount tensions. If it’s not worked out before the spring Passover holiday, the paper notes, things can take a turn for the even worse.

“If we reach that point and there still are no agreements then all the tensions we saw around the Jewish holidays in September can start again,” the paper quotes a senior Israeli official saying.