Nothing new under the gun

It’s still another couple of weeks until synagogue-going Jews will read aloud the Book of Ecclesiastes, but its most famous phrase “There is nothing new under the sun” springs easily to mind when looking at press accounts of the latest violent escalation over the weekend.

Between the pictures of riot-geared police on the streets of Jerusalem, rock-throwing Palestinian protesters and rocket-shrapnel damaged homes in the south, and stories filled with politicians and fed-up citizens calling for the gloves to come off, readers could easily be fooled into thinking they picked up a newspaper from, oh, anytime in last decade or so.

“Fire in Jerusalem, fire in the south” reads the front page headline of tabloid Yedioth Ahronoth, summing up the two main stories of the weekend, after the most intense Gazan rocket fire in over a year was heaped on already mounting violence in East Jerusalem.

The arenas may have been different, but they were clearly linked, at least according to the Salafi group that claimed responsibility, saying it was in response to the events on the Temple Mount, according to the paper.

MK Amir Peretz, a Sderot resident who helped spearhead the Iron Dome anti-missile project as defense minister, also links the two events in a commentary for the paper, in which he calls for a return to normalcy, though not necessarily via the use of bullets and missiles.

“As a defense minister, I was there where you decide on how to respond in real time. I am against those voices claiming that we didn’t let our forces finish the job in Protective Edge and that in Jerusalem we are sending them in with their hands tied. The military forces alone are not enough. Without a diplomatic process, no mission will ever be complete, and this mission is under the full responsibility of the prime minister,” he writes.

Peace efforts are the furthest thing from the hive-mind of Israel Hayom, where the paper tries its darndest to portray the government as tough in the face of the unrest, with a front page headline reading “On order: Live fire,” previewing the expected government okaying of new rules allowing the use of lethal force to quell riots in Jerusalem. The paper reports uncritically that the move has already been implemented and the Sunday meeting will just to formally enshrine it in law. It also adds that with the Jewish High Holy Day of Yom Kippur coinciding with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha later this week, forces are being beefed up around the city even more.

Jerusalem police chief Moshe Edri is quoted in the paper praising the Border Police force after four officers were injured in a clash with Palestinians on Friday.

“Time after time police and Border Police officers prove their dedication to the mission amid life-threatening situations to protect the security of the city’s citizens,” he is quoted saying.

Haaretz’s Amos Harel looks at the violence from the other side of the divide and asks who benefits from the uptick in tensions, pointing a finger at the troublesome trio of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and less obviously, Qatar.

“The Qataris had hoped for a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that would include a total lifting of the Israeli siege on Gaza. But it has recently been made clear to them that Israel would not be a partner to such steps,” he writes. “The overzealousness by Qatari-owned Al Jazeera in covering events in Jerusalem might also be motivated by vengeful feelings in Doha, the Qatari capital. This could be the reason tensions on the Temple Mount lead most news broadcasts there, preceding updates on the daily massacres in Syria. This could also be the reason a few days ago Al Jazeera claimed that ‘buses with settlers and Likud activists’ were on their way to the Mount in what sounded like a strange (and equally unreliable) echo of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warning on Election Day.”

From Solomon to Mishael

The poetic and prophetic words of Ecclesiastes were supposedly written by King Solomon, but it’s another wise and well-spoken judge that most papers are longing for Sunday, with the death of former Supreme Court justice Mishael Cheshin after a long battle with cancer.

Haaretz takes a look at Cheshin’s rulings, going over a number of his decisions including many in which he clashed with Aharon Barak, who presided over the court during much of Cheshin’s term.

“He was regarded as an activist judge who believed in the principle of judicial oversight over laws, not because they might contravene basic laws legislated by the Knesset but because they might contravene unwritten and overriding principles,” the paper reports.

In Yedioth Ahronoth, President Reuven Rivlin pens a eulogy to Cheshin, calling him the “poet of the judicial world.”

“From your pen of judgment flowed one of the most unique and colorful voices the world of justice has known,” he writes.

Many of those poetic rulings are recounted in Israel Hayom, where Cheshin is called a “knight of law and the word.”

One passage, taken from a ruling in a rape case, sounds like it could have been copied right out of Ecclesiastes itself: “’No’ always means ‘no,’ and there’s no ‘no’ that means ‘yes.’ There are no seeing blind and no sober drunks. There’s no smart idiot, and no stubborn giver-upper, no white that’s black and no day that’s night. ‘No’ is ‘no.’”

The paper’s Dan Margalit recalls Cheshin as a fighter against corruption, and notes the change in his demeanor after the devastating death of his son in a hit and run accident in 2010.

“Purity and integrity were his fortissimo during his life which was cut short twice – in the terrible accident that killed his son Schneur and his battle with cancer which he succumbed to yesterday,” he writes. “Yes, amid that he was endowed with weakness and statements that were not in the ‘judicial spirit.’ But they also added to his role model image, which accompanied the pleasant alongside the critical.”