Hit and Iran

Between one man threatening to wipe all of Israel off the map and another man doing his part to wipe one family off the streets, the papers are all filled with jolly news.

Israel Hayom sums up the two main stories of the day (really the weekend) with three words: “Wanted” for crime figure Shushan Baraby, suspected in the hit-and-run deaths three women from the Yugudiyev family, who were guilty of the crime of crossing the street. Baraby has fled to who knows where and the police are looking high and low for him. And below that: “Hate rally,” for the Iran-sponsored Al-Quds day love fest that was celebrated around the world on Friday, which is of course tied in to the bellowing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard air force commander that they are hoping Israel attacks to give them an excuse to go balls to wall against the Jewish state and wipe it out.

In a bit of Jewish-style self-loathing, the paper, in the form of analyst Gonen Ginat, turns the pen on itself, continuing its offensive against Israel’s negligent media. (The move should not be seen as surprising as the paper is considered to be closely allied with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu). “We’ve entered into madness and we need to stop. This is the story of the last few weeks and days, as more and more analysts who don’t have an iota of a clue have been engaging in psychological evaluations, trying to figure out if what drives Netanyahu and [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak is love of action, political interests or psychology stemming from their parents’ legacies.”

The real exclusive from the paper is sandwiched between the two main stories in an itsy bitsy strip: Ambassador to the US Michael Oren’s comments that the US would quickly cotton on to a strike on Iran if only Jerusalem takes the first step. “If Israel eventually decides to act against Iran, we will gain widespread support from the American public and the American Congress, and President Obama will continue to recognize our right to defend ourselves,” Oren was quoted in the paper as saying.

Over at Yedioth, its crackerjack reporters did some digging into the life of Shushan Baraby, the man accused of driving his car into three pedestrians in Netanya, killing them. According to the paper, Baraby, a member of the Abergil crime family, has run afoul of the law again and again, and most of the time gets away pretty scot-free. Two years ago, he evaded police doing 180 kph, and was given his license back after a short time. And 10 years ago, he threatened to off the mayor, and was given a piece of land on which to build a kiosk and barbecue joint, which became a “mafioso hangout,” according to the paper.

Maariv devotes three pages to the crash and reports that friends of Lee Zeitouni, killed in a hit-and-run last year in which the killers fled to France and escaped prosecution, have offered to help the Yagudiyev family find Baraby. Roee Peled, Zeitouni’s boyfriend, published pictures of Baraby on his Facebook wall and details about his criminal past. “This is the help I can give them, since the police as a body cannot publish these things,” Peled said. He added that he gave family member Rudi Yagudiyev advice on how to use the media to try to bring Baraby to justice, even if he fled the country.

Haaretz has the story of the crash down low, instead leading with a report that the US State Department has for the first time defined settler attacks as terrorism. The story is a strange lead, as it was already reported nearly three weeks ago, by Haaretz and others, when an executive summary of the report came out. The designation took on added saliency this weekend, though, as a rash of attacks (okay, two) targeted Palestinians, one a firebomb attack on a taxi near Bat Ayin and another an attack on an Arab youth during a scuffle in Jerusalem’s Zion square, which the Hebrew media has called a “lynching.”

Fringe-wearing terrorists

Want more bad news? The papers have got it for you, by the truck-load, between Syria, Pussy Riot, Iran and everything else. But there’s some good news hidden in there too: Maariv reports that Israel’s health system is the sixth best in the world (vy not number one? asks the country’s mother-in-law). Despite doctor and bed shortages, tales of woe from patients and long lines, Bloomberg found Israel’s cadre of medical professionals to be head and shoulders above countries like France, Britain, the US, Canada and yes, believe it or not, Mozambique. Only Singapore, Italy, Australia, Switzerland and Japan scored higher in the rankings.

1+1 = tango?

In Israel Hayom’s “They Shoot Horses” section is news that the Israeli school system will be teaching kids to shake what their mother gave them, as part of a national dancing initiative.

Thousands of students are expected to take part in the program, which will culminate in a national dance contest. Because if TV has taught us anything, it’s that you don’t need math if you know that it takes two to tango.

The program is not brand new, but the Education Ministry is hoping to massively expand it. “We wanted kids to be doing more physical activity and we looked for something that many would be enthusiastic about, that would enrich them and give them something to take outside the school,” national gym czar Avraham Zuchman told the paper.

All the president’s words

In the op-ed section, Haaretz throws its weight behind President Shimon Peres for coming out against Netanyahu and the rush to war with Iran. “In his cautionary remarks, Peres faithfully performed his duty as president of the state — a horrified president who hears the deepest wishes of a frightened public, and who watches as a prime minister and defense minister act like guided missiles that have lost their way. The president’s authority does not derive from intimate knowledge of intelligence information or from his political power. It is his merits as a statesman and as the shaper of Israeli nuclear policy that oblige him to make his opinion known to the Israeli public, which is being held hostage between the hammer of the Iranian threat and the anvil of the threat of bombing Iran.”

In Maariv, activist Dar Nadler calls for settlers to find common ground with their brethren on the other side of Green Line and vice versa. “In retrospect, it seems clear now that what was mostly absent from the social fabric during the Israeli disengagement from Gaza was social solidarity — our solidarity with the pain and needs of the evacuees. And also solidarity on the part of the evacuees with Israel’s political agenda before the disengagement was almost completely absent. Demonstrations of social solidarity or empathy with the settler population that has lived for decades in uncertainty about the future is not equivalent to expressing support for the settlement enterprise.”

Asks Nadler: “Are we as a society (especially those of us who oppose continued settlement beyond the Green Line, and especially east of the security fence) able to make the distinction between public and political resistance and between demonization of the settlers?”