Mr. Rivlin goes to Washington

Twin terror attacks grab the attention of the tabloids on Thursday morning as the fresh violence shatters the Hanukkah holiday spirit. The hero of the day is not an IDF soldier or umbrella-wielding bystander this time, but a 10-shekel piece and a water bottle that stopped two of the 23 bullets fired at an Israeli car in the West Bank.

But with everyone dishing out gelt for the Festival of Lights, Haaretz reports some 40 percent of Israeli kids won’t be getting much of that for the Hanukkah.

The shooting near the West Bank city of Tulkarem Wednesday evening injured a 60-year-old couple who were driving home after lighting Hanukkah candles. The husband, who was driving the vehicle, crashed the car after it was sprayed with bullets. He was seriously injured and his wife lightly hurt. They are named as Rachel and Shaul Nir, residents of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Israeli security personnel searched for the terrorists who fled the scene of the crime. The perpetrators of the attack remained at large as of time of publication, Israel Hayom says.

Locals reported extensive IDF activity in the vicinity of the attack in the hours thereafter, accompanied by clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces, Haaretz reports. The IDF confiscated security cameras from homes near the entrance to the village of Shufa, near the scene of the shooting, the paper says.

Israel Hayom casually mentions towards the end of its article that Shaul Nir served six years for murdering three Arabs in a 1983 terror attack in Hebron and belonging to a Jewish terrorist group. That fact features much more prominently in Yedioth Ahronoth’s coverage. Both papers note that the couple’s son-in-law was murdered in a terrorist attack in Hebron in 2003.

Residents of the West Bank settlement adjacent to the attack tell Yedioth Ahronoth that they warned the authorities about the perilousness of the road on which the shooting took place.

“We’re experiencing a difficult event in the midst of Hanukkah,” a resident of Avnei Hefetz says. “Orot Junction was opened about a year ago to Palestinian vehicle traffic, and since, despite warnings from residents of the settlement and army officers in the fields about the danger, no order’s been given to close the road [to Palestinians].”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s delayed rejection of anti-Muslim comments made by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — and the announcement that the two will meet on December 28 — makes front page news in Haaretz, but gets shunted to the back of Israel Hayom for some inexplicable reason.

But the star of the day is President Reuven Rivlin, who met with US President Barack Obama and attended a Hanukkah party at the White House. His beaming face while he lights the menorah alongside Obama is the front page photo in Haaretz, which makes much of his remark that “we have no war against Islam.”

Israel Hayom, by comparison, highlights Rivlin’s statement to Obama that “Israel has no greater friend than the United States.”

Yedioth Ahronoth’s Nahum Barnea, who was at the White House, writes that what was initially a courtesy visit by the ceremonial head of state turned into a working meeting between Obama and Rivlin, with Vice President Joe Biden and national security advisor Susan Rice in attendance. He says that Obama himself expressed how special Rivlin’s visit was.

“I found a friend and companion to the State of Israel in the White House,” the paper quotes Rivlin saying at the end of the meeting with Obama. “President Obama is committed to the security of the citizens of Israel and its protection. We have a unbreakable commitment to protect the State of Israel and help it.”

A National Insurance Institute report indicating a steep rise in poverty in Israel gets far less attention than Rivlin’s magical visit to Washington. Haaretz highlights that among the developed countries of the OECD, only Mexico has a higher poverty rate — and by the smallest margin — 18.9% compared to Israel’s 18.8%. Israel Hayom strikes a more positive note, assuring its readers with a quote from Welfare Minister Haim Katz that the report on 2014’s rise in poverty “is horrendous, difficult, but it’s impossible to overcome poverty in a short amount of time.”

“Next year the statistics will be better,” he said.

One thing that the press can’t avoid is the disappearance of an MK. Katz’s fellow Likud MK Oren Hazan, whose scandalous tenure has garnered more headlines than most lawmakers in this Knesset, has disappeared, according to Yedioth Ahronoth. He’s not shown up to parliament and isn’t answering his phone, and his absence from the plenary threatens Netanyahu’s wafer thin majority in the case of a crucial vote.