Summary of Editorials from the Hebrew Press
Two papers discuss the Ministerial Committee on Legislation’s decision yesterday to advance draft legislation that would worsen conditions under which Hamas security prisoners are held as long as abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit remains in captivity:
Yediot Aharonot commends the Committee’s decision as „important and dramatic,” and believes that „The only way to change anything substantive in the static situation in which we have become stuck on the Shalit issue is to press the prisoners so that they will press their leaders.” The author believes that the lack of a unified leadership within Hamas and the impossibility of freeing Shalit by force have left Israel with no choice but to apply pressure and urges anyone who opposes the application of pressure on Hamas security prisoners to consider the conditions under which Gilad Shalit is being held.
Yisrael Hayom avers that „Special and harsh circumstances lead to special and harsh laws.” The author suggests that „Determining severe restrictions via legislation and applying them carefully and with sagacity, to each individual case, is likely to pass legal muster,” and adds that „Only time will tell if the new legislation, if it is approved, will prove not only just but prudent as well.”
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Ma’ariv comments on the tenth anniversary of the withdrawal from southern Lebanon and declares that „The main lesson for the future is that any disengagement, withdrawal or exit from areas in Judea and Samaria that is not accompanied by international agreement – is destined to fail.”
The Jerusalem Post examines the radical transformation brought about to the IDF’s Chaplaincy Corps by IDF Chief Rabbi Brig.-Gen, Avichai Ronsky, during his four years of service, and notes that Ronsky’s great contribution to the IDF and the State of Israel was in confronting people with the fact that without a solid belief in the fundamental righteousness of Jews’ demands for a state in the land of Israel, it is difficult to imagine Zionist continuity and it is nearly impossible to meet the myriad challenges faced by the Jewish state.
Haaretz discusses the inter-ministerial committee tasked with examining the status of migrant workers’ children, which is scheduled to submit its report this week. The committee is expected to recommend that the government grant permanent-residence status to children who are currently enrolled in the state education system, and have been living in Israel for more than five years. The editor notes that if the interior minister accepts the report’s proposals, „Israel will have taken advantage of an opportunity to rectify a long-standing injustice,” and declares: „Israel must shed its parochial paranoia by developing a cogent and humane immigration policy that fulfills the biblical commandment as it relates to foreigners: ‘And he shall be as one that is born in the land.'”
BreuerPress-info
