Gripes of wrath

You know the old saying, if at first you don’t succeed, try breaking some bank windows, blocking roads and perpetrating general mayhem.

The protests in Tel Aviv finally made front-page news, but unlike last year, when it was peaceful tents, free love, and the happiest bunch of discontents this side of Rothschild Boulevard, this time the demonstrations turned violent, and the Israeli press took notice.

Yedioth Ahronoth is the only paper to lead off with the protests (the other three find the rocket attacks on the south more engaging; more on that lower down). At about 3 a.m. Daphni Leef tweeted that Yedioth was trying to make her look like she was messed up in the head, and she may have a point. Pictured with a cast, and a finger pointing at what looks to be a very long snaggle tooth (gauze perhaps?) she looks like she’s maybe not all there. But of course she is, and so was everybody else in defense of her, after she was arrested Friday night for trying to put up a tent, and the throngs came out to protest her treatment.

Under the headline “The protest has lost control,” Yedioth writes that “thousands went wild through the streets of Tel Aviv breaking bank windows.”

Yoaz Hendel writes on the front page that the protesters “crossed the red line,” which is the Hebrew equivalent of “crossed the line.” Writing that protest organizers are frustrated over the fact that they have failed to gain the critical mass they did last year, he says, “There is justification for the [protesters’] feelings [of feeling unwelcome and unnoticed], but this does not give permission for unbridled mayhem.”

Haaretz’s Or Kashti sees things differently though, writing that the police brought the angry demonstration upon themselves when they arrested Leef Friday night. “If the prospect of a renewed summer social protest needed a little spark to get angry, raging Israelis back on the street, the police’s special unit officers and [Tel Aviv Mayor Ron] Huldai’s municipal inspectors generously provided just that; the disproportional use of force against Leef – one woman vs. five-six officers, and later other protesters – tainted the events on Rothschild.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGgsh2yGbXU

The other papers lead off with the news that was on everybody’s minds all weekend before Tel Aviv turned into Athens — the heating up of the south. Once again rocket counts differ, but the story is the same, Sderot was under fire all Shabbat, Gaza was hit by IAF fire, but as Israel Hayom puts it, some semblance of a ceasefire is holding, barely, if only because neither side wants to go any further.

If you’ve heard the phrase “quiet will be met by quiet” before, it’s because it’s become Israel’s mantra every time it tries to calm tensions with Gaza, and Israel Hayom sees fit to splash it across its Page 2-3 southern rocket package. Only in the fine print do you get the but… “Israel reserves the right to act, at the time and place of its choosing, against terrorists.”

Maariv celebrates Iron Dome’s 100th interception with a full-page story and timeline of the missile defense system’s successes (it’s shot down about 80%). Apparently, the paper is the only one crowing. “There’s no doubt that there’s a feeling of satisfaction, but nobody is stopping to celebrate, definitely not in this intensification of the situation,” one military source is quoted saying in the paper. Poor DomeDome. If you want to get it a cake or balloons, just attack the gift to a projectile and shoot it out of Gaza at one of the cities it’s currently protecting. Domeoosh will get the message.

Smoke on the water

Remember that video of the chubby Indonesian 3-year-old chain smoking cigarettes that went viral a few years ago? Well, a 2-year-old in Eilat is trying to top that, Yedioth Ahronoth writes, with a video of his own. According to the story, nobody did a thing about the toddler puffing away, or his parents, even though he was having a smoke in broad daylight on the boardwalk. Only when the video went online did people start asking whether mom and pop are fit to be raising the little puffer.

“If I knew the parents I would go to the police and file a complaint against them,” an anti-smoking activist told the paper. “I think social services need to get that kid away from his parents.”

Israel Hayom notes that rockets weren’t the only things falling on Israel over the weekend. As summer began, the north and south (but not center) of Israel got an unexpected rain shower for about an hour, an extreme rarity this late into the dry season. The rain was heavy enough that nine hikers in Ein Bokek near the Dead Sea had to be rescued from a flash flood, the paper reports.

Paying for old mistakes

Rubik Rosenthal writes in Maariv’s op-ed pages that the minutes of meetings from the Six Day War being released show a leadership that was too short-sighted to see the problems of conquering and holding the whole of the West Bank — problems that Israel is having to grapple with today. “The spirit was unified: Whatever is captured in war is ours, whether for settling or for security needs. The Sinai is a security asset that we won’t think of returning. The Gaza Strip is an inseparable part of Israel, and according to [prime minister] Levi Eshkol, ‘ours since the days of Samson.’ It’s still not truly settled, but according to [defense minister] Yigal Allon, the enclaves of settlements could start in Hebron and Gush Etzion. Who needs [settler leader] Rabbi [Moshe] Levinger when Yigal Allon is on the scene?”

In Haaretz, editor-in-chief Aluf Benn writes that Interior Minister Eli Yishai should resign, if only to prove to the other ministers that what happens under their watches have consequences. “His departure will be a big symbolic contribution to the culture of government in Israel. If Yishai says ‘I failed and I am leaving,’ he will light the way for ministers to come who will not take lightly the responsibility for what happens at their ministries.”