Jerusalem of calm?

Jerusalem of late has been a city on edge. Terror attacks, demonstrations, and political provocations over the past few weeks are proof of how quickly the situation has deteriorated.

It is against that backdrop that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a surprise trip on Thursday to Amman to meet with King Abdullah of Jordan and US Secretary of State John Kerry in an effort to defuse the situation.

Netanyahu has apparently promised Jordan’s king “We’ll work for calm,” according to a front-page story in Yedioth Ahronoth. While the leaders don’t say exactly what steps they’ll take to restore calm to Jerusalem, one dramatic move they have undertaken is to remove age restrictions on all Temple Mount worshipers for Friday prayers. “Friday will be a test,” the paper notes, “to see if the prayers pass without any rioting.”

Israel Hayom has a different take on the talks in Amman, suggesting the goal wasn’t only to calm the situation in Jerusalem, but to smooth over differences with Jordan and possibly restart the peace process. The paper quotes an unnamed Arabic news source as saying, “Issues relating to the Temple Mount and the reduction of violence were discussed at the beginning of the meeting, and the majority of the meeting was effectively aimed at restarting the peace process.”

Although Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wasn’t invited to the meeting — he met separately, earlier, with Kerry — Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi teleconferenced in from Egypt, but the paper doesn’t say what he contributed to the discussion.

Dan Margalit of Israel Hayom characterizes the outcome of the meeting as having “temporary but immediate results,” the first of which is Netanyahu’s reiterated declaration that there would be no change in the status quo at the Temple Mount with regard to the ban on Jewish prayers at the holy site.

This is, of course, something he has said before in Hebrew. But by sitting with King Abdullah, the prime minister is now broadcasting the message in Arabic and English as well, Margalit claims. Another “temporary but immediate result” of the meeting, according to Margalit, was an appearance of Israel making concessions to Abdullah and the Palestinians by removing the age restriction on worshipers at the Temple Mount.

That said, Margalit points out, no one knows exactly what was agreed upon behind closed doors and what Israel is getting in return.

Despite Netanyahu’s assurances, Amira Hass of Haaretz writes that the Palestinians believe Israel is actually trying to take control of the Temple Mount. She writes that the very measures that Israel has used to try to restore calm at the holy site — mainly age restrictions and an increased police presence — are interpreted by the Palestinians as attempts by Israel to change the status quo.

Hass quotes “George,” a Christian member of the Palestinian Authority, as saying that before these measures were in place, he viewed the Temple Mount as the one place in Jerusalem he could go that was “free of the occupation.” But now, Hass quotes him, “they’ve taken that.”

Yedioth, meanwhile, includes a short article that could be used as a barometer by which to measure the tension in the city: a dramatic rise in the sale of pepper spray. The paper profiles the store Lametayel, which specializes in equipment for the outdoors. The shop also sells pepper spray, of which there’s reportedly been a 40% increase in demand since the beginning of the recent outbreak of violence in Jerusalem.

The store in the center of the city has already refilled its stock of pepper spray three times over the past month, according to the report. But it’s not just Jerusalem, Shelly Hodorov, CEO of Lametayel, told the paper: “Demand for pepper spray has also risen in Tel Aviv.”

War of words

While the prime minister is trying to calm nationalistic tensions in Jerusalem, the state comptroller, Joseph Shapiro, is preparing to look into the growing rift between the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet. Haaretz reports that Shapiro will expand his current probe into Operation Protective Edge to include an investigation into how both organizations prepared for the war.

Earlier this week, the IDF and the Shin Bet traded barbs after the latter said it had warned the army in January that Hamas wanted to start a war in July. The IDF denied the claims and the Shin Bet walked back its statement, saying there was no explicit warning.

Yedioth features the dispute between the heads of the IDF and the Shin Bet on its front page. In addition, columnist Alex Fishman breaks down just what the dispute is all about.

The Shin Bet received information that Hamas was planning a terror attack using a tunnel to infiltrate a border community, take hostages and kill soldiers. As far as the Shin Bet is concerned, this would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

However, the IDF sees it differently, believing that if it were able to prevent the terror attack, it would not necessarily constitute an escalation into war unless Israel decided it wanted to go that route.

Fishman writes that the only true solution to prevent this sniping between the intelligence services is for each of them to be fully transparent with the other. But the writer doesn’t think this will ever happen. “It would be a lot easier to reach an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians than for two Israeli intelligence agencies to be transparent with each other,” he laments.

Connected to the case?

Chances are that most readers had never heard the name Benny Tavin before Thursday — but now he’s one of the most talked-about people in the Hebrew press.

The former political operative, with close ties to Ehud Olmert, Shula Zaken and others, was found dead on Thursday. Haaretz reports that police found Tavin’s body, with a gunshot wound, in his car in a Tel Aviv cemetery and that there was a gun in the car. The preliminary police reports indicate that his death was suicide and no foul play was involved.

Things got nasty as news reached the courtroom where Ehud Olmert is being retried for the Talansky affair. Shula Zaken was being cross-examined by Olmert’s lawyers when the news arrived and she lashed out at Olmert, accusing him of being responsible for Tavin’s suicide. Olmert turned it around on Zaken, saying she was the one responsible. But before it could go much further, the judge called a halt to the day’s proceedings.

So who exactly was Benny Tavin? Israel Hayom digs into Tavin’s past and finds that the former elite soldier and private investigator had had some encounters with the law. He served two jail sentences — one for eight months for his role in creating fake invoices during the 1989 elections. More recently, he was released in 2010 after serving two years for his part in a bribery case linked to businessman David Appel.

Adding to the mystery is the fact that Tavin had quite a bit of money, but no one is quite sure where his fortune came from. The paper suspects, however, that it can be traced to real estate in the Israeli cities of Ramle and Lod.