Israel at 65, sooo much better than Sri Lanka, North Korea and Myanmar

Israel’s newspapers don their holiday best this morning to mark Memorial Day and Independence Day, their front pages reflecting the passage from mourning to celebration and showcasing the goodies inside their special holiday editions.

The logos and color schemes are transformed from the customary tabloid red and black to patriotic blue and white, with the olive green of IDF uniforms mixed in generously.

There’ll be no Hebrew dailies tomorrow, so the nation’s complex mix of mourning and celebration during these 48 hours have to be balanced within one day’s editions.

The front pages of Yedioth Ahronoth, Maariv and Israel Hayom all follow the same theme, with half the page dedicated to the pain and sorrow of Memorial Day — with photos of soldiers mourning at cemeteries — and the other half dedicated to the rejoicing of Independence Day — pictures showing smiling children waving Israeli flags. The countenance of President Shimon Peres also looks out from the front pages, with all three papers offering interviews with the head of state.

The inside pages of Yedioth Ahronoth feature columns by public figures such as former Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin, IDF Spokesman Yoav Mordechai and author Zeruya Shalev, reflecting on the days’ meaning to them in light of their own personal losses.

In its Memorial Day section, Yedioth includes interviews with soldiers who were named after siblings and others who died in previous wars, and in the Independence Day section it speaks to new immigrants about the moment they first felt like they were “true” Israelis.

For Noah Kliger, who immigrated from France in 1949, the moment came when he sat down to a plate of humous with Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball players. For Dani-Adino Ababa, who arrived from Ethiopia, it was when he was told that an Ethiopian soldier with a similar life story had been killed in service.

Yedioth’s four special holiday sections include an interview with members of the legendary 70’s pop group Kaveret, who are playing their ostensibly final reunion concerts in a few weeks time. Though in their sixties, they project the youth and enthusiasm that made them so popular 40 years ago, talking geopolitics, weather and reliving the days of yore. “There is something naive and odd about the fact that for the audience, you peaked at the age of 23,” says bassist Alon Olearchik. “All of us have been through so much in our careers, but they want to see us as if we were 23 again.”

“Once people came to hear our new songs; today they come to check in on us,” quips guitarist Efraim Shamir. In an effort to explain the group’s immense popularity — tickets to their Jerusalem concerts were sold out within hours — Shamir suggests that Kaveret represents all that was once good about the country. “There exists in Israel a yearning for the past and we managed to be tied into that. Israelis love to reminisce and think that everything used to be very good here. It wasn’t, we just forgot,” he concludes.

Other special features include an interactive photo essay with pictures of IDF soldiers coming to life on readers’ smart phones, and a fashion spread with newly sworn-in female MKs dressed in blue and white and posing in a field.

Maariv’s holiday issue centers around the Peres interview, and the president speaks his mind on everything from Israel’s never-confirmed nuclear program to peace processes past and present and his vision of a world managed by international corporations.

At one point in the interview Peres recalls how then Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa asked Peres to take him to the Dimona nuclear plant. “I told him Amr, are you crazy? I’ll take you to Dimona, you’ll see there is nothing there and write it up. I’m happy you’re suspicious and don’t want to alleviate your suspicions.'”

Back in the present, Peres says he is convinced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is capable of signing a peace agreement with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Peres reveals that, with Netanyahu’s full knowledge and permission, he has met several times with Abbas in an effort to set out the principles to conclude negotiations.

“I reached an agreement with Abbas on many of the issues,” Peres says. “[But] there was a moment there that the prime minister believed he could get a better offer and he rejected the agreement.” Asked if a better offer ever came through, the president declined to answer.

The issue also takes a look into the military’s rank and file and muses on whether the IDF remains “the people’s army.”

A fiery interview with the national soccer team’s head coach Eli Gutman, in which he talks about the challenges of constant media criticism surrounding him and the team, his fallout with superstar Yossi Benayoun and his tempered hopes of reaching the World Cup finals in Brazil, rounds up the paper’s Independence Day coverage.

Israel Hayom too makes the most of its Peres interview, featuring photos depicting key points of the 90-year-old’s long and busy life alongside the president’s words of wisdom.

In the interview, Peres responds to questions about his health, saying his bodyguards envy his physical condition. “I think my optimistic soul affects my physical well-being. Sick people have foul moods. I am in good spirits,” he says.

Peres also addresses rumors that his predecessor, Moshe Katsav, who was convicted of rape and is serving a seven-year prison sentence, has asked him for a pardon. Though he fails to speak directly to Katsav’s case, saying he has received no formal request, his attitude towards granting pardons leaves little room for doubt as to where he stands.

“There are some things that I am very strict about: traffic accidents and violence towards women,” he says. “I receive 3,000 pardon requests every year and examine every one of them personally. I intervene only when the humanitarian considerations overcome the legal ones.”

Comedian Yair Nitzani reflects on the nature of Israeliness via some of the more mundane daily objects and events that make up life in the 65-year-old country, from matkot on the beach to the military-issued “Dubon” coat, while singer Yehoram Gaon plays the association game, offering the first thing that comes to mind when asked about everything from war (Israel has been in one long war with intervening periods of peace), to film (we have a thriving movie industry we can be proud of), to technology (I don’t know of another iPhone so full of new apps as mine is).

Haaretz explores modern Israeliness by examining bygone or altered cultural norms and reflecting on their meaning to society from a psychological perspective. Via a tongue-in-cheek psychological analysis of the Israeli addiction to smart phone use, the national obsession with fertility and the revival of public singalongs, the piece takes readers on a tour of the “Israeli genome,” by looking at their origins and airing out collective phobias, complexes and disorders.

In its financial section, Haaretz compares Israel to three other countries which also turn 65 this year. Next to Sri Lanka, North Korea and Myanmar, it concludes, Israel is doing very well indeed.