Israel’s cultural divide on full display

The divide between ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis gets front-page coverage in all the papers a day after a huge prayer demonstration was held by the ultra-Orthodox against threatened IDF enlistment.

“We won’t be drafted” is the main headline on Yedioth Ahronoth’s front page, which also reports that organizers were satisfied with the turnout. Columnist Nahum Barnea, who was present, writes that the point of the rally was to solidify support against the draft within the ultra-Orthodox community. He also includes an exchange he had with one of the protesters that highlights for him the cultural divide between secular Israelis like himself and the attendees of the rally. Supporter: The ultra-Orthodox community will only listen to its rabbis and not the government. Barnea: But the rabbis live in their own world; they’re not connected to reality.

He laments what he sees as the wasted potential of the ultra-Orthodox community. “I thought about the talented ones among them, the Nobel Prize winners that will never go to Stockholm, the technology geniuses that will never make an app… So much potential, so little success for themselves, for society.”

The demonstration gets four pages of coverage in Maariv, including an article about the ultra-Orthodox women who attended: “They came in droves – young, old, mothers with infants, seminary students. They came to do what they know best – pray with all their hearts.”

One of the women told the paper her reason for protesting. “Why not draft everyone? Because in every war there was a group of yeshiva students who studied. There is one thing that is being overlooked here, and Lapid knows it, that the moment we don’t have people studying Torah we will lose Israel.”

On the opposite page, the paper reports that IDF Chief Benny Gantz visited on Sunday an ultra-Orthodox army unit. Among the comments he made to the soldiers was, “In Auschwitz they didn’t separate us and we all went to the ovens, no matter if we wore a yarmulke or not.” He went on to say that the challenges facing Israel demand that everyone be drafted, and “it is possible to serve in the army and remain ultra-Orthodox.”

Over in Israel Hayom, columnist Yehuda Schlesinger writes that the demonstration was both a success and a failure. It was a success because it unified the ultra-Orthodox community and did so without incident. However, it was a failure in terms of the community explaining itself to secular Israel. He writes that any secular Israeli would feel angry if they “heard the words of Rabbi Zilberman, who closed out the rally by saying that the demonstrators should not go to the army under any circumstance.” He concludes by saying the demonstration “only illustrated the rift between the two societies.”

Tick tock tick tock

The other news that caught the attention of the Israeli press is an interview that Barack Obama had with Bloomberg journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, which included some tough words for Bibi. The story takes the top spot on Haaretz’s front page, and its headline pretty much sums up the feeling of the interview, “Obama to Netanyahu: Time is running out for Israel to make peace.” The paper notes the deliberate timing of the piece, being published on the eve of a Washington meeting between Netanyahu and Obama on Monday.

Haaretz’s editorial focuses on the upcoming meeting between the two leaders and calls the Obama White House “a partner.” With all the shuttle diplomacy that has gone on and the demands that Israel has placed on the peace process (a national referendum and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state), Obama has not abandoned Israel. The paper openly worries about the loss of America as a partner in peace and urges Netanyahu to take action. “He [Netanyahu] needs to understand that a framework agreement is not a declaration of war against Israel, and certainly not an American betrayal. He must not sabotage it.”

In Israel Hayom, veteran columnist Dan Margalit writes that America’s heart right now is in the East, watching Ukraine and not the Middle East. “It is in Israel’s interest to appear as not poking sticks in the wheels of the American chariot. Take the [Bloomberg] article as a list of doubts, and there’s no need to make inflammatory statements on continued settlements,” he writes. The focus in the coming days and weeks will be Ukraine, and Margalit writes that when the US is weakened in Europe, it is also weakened in the Middle East.

Yedioth also comments on Obama’s interview with Bloomberg, with Orly Azoulay calling this a “last chance for assistance.” She writes, “Today [Monday] Obama will offer the last chance before he slams shut the window of opportunity he created,” she writes. She writes that if Obama can’t get Netanyahu to agree to the framework agreement, that’s it; there won’t be another chance, at least not in Obama’s term.