HEADLINES & EDITORIALS

HEADLINES FROM THE HEBREW PRESS HA’ARETZ 1. PUTIN, BEFORE VISIT TO ISRAEL: MISSILE DEAL TO PREVENT IDF FROM FLYING OVER ASSAD’S PALACE. 2. Holiday interview with PM. SHARON: I CAN TAKE INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE FOR ADDITIONAL WEST BANK WITHDRAWAL. 3. PA PREPARING FOR COORDINATED WITHDRAWAL. 4. ISRAELI CONSUL IN THE HAGUE ARRESTED ON SUSPICION OF ISSUING 150 PASSPORTS IN EXCHANGE FOR BRIBES. Uriel Yitzhaki also suspected of having relations with female Consulate employee via abuse of power. MA’ARIV 1. PM to Ma’ariv: I don’t regret settlements. SHARON TO RABBIS: DON’T INTERFERE. PM speaks about rabbis: „Army will not operate according to their orders.” About Iran: „Only Bush can stop them.” And about [Defense Ministry Director-General] Amos Yaron: „I will not allow him to be fired.” 2. PUTIN’S GIFT TO ABU MAZEN. Russian President to give Palestinians 50 APCs and two helicopters. Israel: We haven’t approved the deal. 3. THE CONSUL AND THE BOGUS PASSPORTS. „Flying Dutchman” – code name investigators have given to Uriel Yitzhaki affair. Suspicion: Diplomat forged 150 passports, received bribes and demanded that cleaning worker sleep with him. YEDIOT AHRONOT 1. PM in holiday interview (.). SHARON: I WANT TO SAVE AS MANY SETTLEMENTS AS POSSIBLE. „There are those who want to attack the disengagement and I won’t let them.” 2. „DIPLOMAT WORKING FOR THE MAFIA.” Police suspect: Israeli Consul in Holland, Uriel Yitzhaki, forged 150 passports and laundered millions for underworld. His lawyer: This is libel by jilted lover. 3. CHIEF-OF-STAFF: I DON’T WANT A FAREWELL CEREMONY. Following announcement, DM canceled event. [HATZOFEH was unavailable today.] ______________________________ SUMMARY OF EDITORIALS FROM THE HEBREW PRESS Yediot Ahronot believes that disaffected Likud MKs are as yet unwilling to openly call for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s ouster as head of the party and suggests that at least some of them are motivated more by the Prime Minister’s failure to distribute sufficient perks and other rewards than they are by opposition to the Disengagement Plan per se. Yediot Ahronot, in its second editorial, refers to recent remarks by outgoing IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon on the relationship between the media and the military. The editors suggest that, „There is no place in the world in which the press is loved even though the military is not loved everywhere. We always love our young people in uniform and we love less those busybodies who write that the boys in uniform aren’t perfect.” BPI-info