Shattered windows and broken borders

Israel’s newspaper editors were united in their choice of the top front-page story this morning. Last night’s anti-migrant protest in Tel Aviv, which turned into a violent hate-fest with protesters looting a migrant-owned store, burning trash cans, harassing passersby and smashing a car windshield, leads all the papers.

“Rage, violence and xenophobia in southern Tel Aviv,” reads the top headline in Maariv. The headline accompanies a photo showing a mob surrounding a car with its windows shattered, driven by an African migrant.

“Harsh violence in Tel Aviv anti-foreigner protest,” reads the headline in Haaretz, above a similar photo. The article reports on how 1,000 residents of the city’s southern neighborhoods, led by right-wing MKs, called for the immediate deportation of all the asylum seekers. Other protests were held in the cities of Eilat, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Bnei Brak.

Yedioth Ahronoth leads with a headline announcing that the minister of public security is considering deploying a Border Police platoon in the city to keep the peace.

Israel Hayom chose to report the incident from a different angle, its main headline announcing that deportation of migrants to South Sudan has been approved by the attorney general.

Other stories making the front page today include a Yedioth story on a new bill aiming to close off access to pornographic Internet sites, a Haaretz story reporting on Turkey’s demands to imprison Israel’s former chief of staff and other officers for their role in the raid on the Mavi Marmara, an Israel Hayom story on the release from the hospital of Rachel Attias, the sole survivor of a tragic car accident that killed eight of her family members, and a Maariv story on Madonna’s upcoming visit to Israel.

On the inside pages, Yedioth runs an update on the rape investigation of Kiryat Malachi Mayor Motti Malka. According to the story, two additional women have come forth in recent days to report that Malka had sexually molested them. The court has agreed to remand him for three more days.

Maariv reports, on Page 6, of a display of racism by high school students in a Bnei Akiva yeshiva. Three exam proctors of Druze heritage were greeted by chants of “death to Arabs” and hateful slogans on the blackboard, when they arrived to oversee an exam at the Bat yam school last week.

On page 25, Maariv interviews former deputy chief of staff Dan Harel, who says that a successful resolution at the Baghdad nuclear talks is better for Israel than a military strike on Iran because it will gain the same results without harming anyone.

Both Haaretz and Israel Hayom feature stories on the archaeological discovery of a piece of an ancient seal that provides the oldest known reference to the city of Bethlehem.

Wanted: Joint action on the migrant problem

Maariv features an op-ed by Amnon Ben Ami, the director general of the Population, Immigration and Borders Authority, on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of dealing with the migrant situation. Ben Ami writes that the public is foolish to expect a quick solution to the migrant problem and urges a comprehensive government plan “before it’s too late.” Ben Ami suggests that all the solutions are already in place and all that is now needed is a joint effort to implement them.

In Israel Hayom, Amnon Bazak speaks out against the government’s decision to hold Independence Day on a Thursday every year. He writes that separating the celebrations from their Jewish calender date is an insult to Zionism.

Former opposition leader Tzipi Livni writes in Haaretz about all that’s distasteful in Israeli politics. “Espouse the vacuous, the hollow slogan; appropriate the show, the gestures. Lose the content, the vision and the values. Do not let a position or an opinion stand in your way, pickpocket the opinions of others before they take your idea first. Conduct public opinion polls and tell the masses what they want to hear. Do nothing, because in any case it is unnecessary,” writes Livni about the system she was an integral part of until very recently.