Jerusalem on the brink

Wednesday night’s attempted assassination attempt of prominent right-wing activist Yehudah Glick adds to the building tension in Jerusalem.

The assassination attempt is the top story in Yedioth Ahronoth, which, instead of an article headline, dramatically describes the attack. “10 p.m., Jerusalem. A motorcyclist approaches the Temple Mount activist and asks, ‘Are you Yehudah Glick?’ When Glick responds yes, the man opens fire.” The paper reports that Glick was shot at point-blank range and is hospitalized in serious condition, with life-threatening injuries.

In an accompanying article, the paper describes Glick, who it calls (because of the attack), “the man who became a powder keg.” It tells how Glick has become the dominant activist for Jews reclaiming the Temple Mount. He has led tours for tourists at the site, and has also been arrested for trying to lead prayers there (which is illegal). Shortly before he was attacked, he gave a speech about the Temple Mount at the Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, where he told the audience, “I leave my cellphone on; in case we get permission to build the Temple during my speech, we can immediately go and start building.”

Israel Hayom’s Nadav Shragai writes, “Glick has a stormy personality but is an innocent person.” He writes that Glick has never urged violence against anyone and that this attack is reminiscent of Rehavam Ze’evi’s assassination in 2001 in the midst of the Second Intifada. All Glick was trying to do, he writes, was bring Jews to the Temple Mount, “the holiest place for the Jewish people, and only the third-holiest for the Muslim religion.”

Shragai goes on to say that the fact that police have closed the Temple Mount to everyone in response to the attack is an easy solution, while the Israeli government needs to enact the “difficult, but just solution.” “Allow Jews to finally exercise their rights and have the Israeli government allow them to visit the Temple Mount, while stopping and containing the Muslim violence on the Temple Mount.”

Haaretz carries the assassination attempt on its front page and gives a dry accounting of the incident. Inside though, the paper delves into the overall crisis in Jerusalem. The paper traces the unrest back to the July murder of Muhammed Abu Khdeir in the neighborhood of Shuafat, a revenge attack by alleged Jewish terrorists for June’s killings by a Hamas cell in the West Bank of three Israeli teenagers . Since then there has been a constant backdrop of tension in Jerusalem, with clashes breaking out mostly in the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Alongside the article, the paper includes a map highlighting different parts of the city that have added to the tension, like Ramat Shlomo, where recent building announcements led to international condemnation.

More chickenshit

The day after the word “chickenshit” made a splash in Middle Eastern diplomacy, it seems both the American and Israeli governments are trying to focus on other things. The papers? Not so much.

All the papers have op-eds on who exactly is a chickenshit and who is to blame for the recent breakdown between Bibi and Obama.

Haaretz’s Gidon Levy’s op-ed is titled, “Who is the real chickenshit?” (with the English word chickenshit appearing in the headline instead of the Hebrew, just so there’s no mistranslation). Levy thinks that it is actually Obama who is the chickenshit, calling American policy in the Middle East “cowardly.” “Obama let Netanyahu continue building settlements, striking the fatal blow for the two state solution,” Levy writes. At least Netanyahu has an ideology and acts accordingly, writes Levy, while Obama knows what is right and doesn’t do it, out of cowardice.

Both Yedioth and Israel Hayom carry a picture from former congressman Allen West who posted side-by-side pictures of Obama and Netanyahu in their youth. Obama is shown relaxing and smoking, while Netanyahu is in full army gear from his days in the elite Sayerat Matkal unit. The caption reads in both papers, “Who here is the chickenshit?”

Yedioth’s Sima Kadmon writes in her piece, “The chicken and the egg,” that the term chickenshit is not a nice name to call a head of state, particularly an ally. When Netanyahu responded that the reason that he is being attacked is because he is defending the interests of the State of Israel, Kadmon asks, “C’mon, really? I think the prime minister is insulting the intelligence of the Israeli public. The only interests he is defending are his political interests.”

She says Netanyahu hasn’t persuaded her to be offended for him. Since Israel’s citizens have no problem with Obama, in fact we need to be eternally grateful to him, she writes. Who has been as good to Israel as Obama, she asks, listing all he’s done for Israel. “The stream of billions of dollars, weaponry, Iron Dome, sanctions against our enemies, vetoes in the Security Council.” Instead of chickenshit, she suggests another word the Obama administration could use: “ungrateful.”

In Israel Hayom, Dror Idar takes the opposite view, calling Obama a coward. “In the last six years the [American] government has made every possible mistake in managing conflicts around the world.” This current round of diplomatic fallout started with building announcements in Jerusalem and despite American pressure, Israel will not cave, he writes. “Jerusalem is preferable to peace…There is no Zionism without Zion [Jerusalem].”