Yediot Aharonot believes that „The White House decided to change the tone because they reached the conclusion that by embracing him, they will succeed in getting more out of Netanyahu than they would by pressure and humiliating ceremonies.” The author cautions that „While the embrace will be flattering, the pressure will not be relaxed,” and adds, „The message will not change, it will even be sharpened: Obama wants quiet in the Middle East and a state for the Palestinians because for him this is an outstanding American interest.” The paper asserts that „Netanyahu must lend Washington a hand a go with it – because this is in his and our interest.”
Ma’ariv suggests that those within the Obama administration who see a link between the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and progress against Iran, or in Baghdad and Kabul, are gaining ground. The author believes that Washington’s softer approach toward Israel in recent weeks is designed, in part, to make it easier for Prime Minister Netanyahu to justify extending the construction freeze in Judea and Samaria, in some form, and adds that the White House believes that the Prime Minister would survive any resulting coalition crisis.
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Two papers discuss abducted soldier Gilad Shalit:
Haaretz writes: „The prime minister needs to make the difficult decision to secure Gilad Shalit’s release immediately and stop hiding behind security rationales to avoid that decision. The prime minister’s argument essentially equates the threat that these dozens of terrorists would pose if released with the far greater threats posed, for example, by Hizbullah or Iran. Yet Netanyahu has never been heard to say that Israel is incapable of dealing with these threats. There is no choice but to conclude that the prime minister is trying to hide behind security rationales in order to avoid a difficult political and diplomatic decision. The prime minister would be wise not to put the public and its support for the Shalit family to the test. His weak arguments merely deepen the public’s distrust of his position.”
Yisrael Hayom refers to the march for Gilad Shalit’s release and suggests that „If an alien landed here and saw the march and the demonstrations, he would reasonably conclude that it was the Israeli Prime Minister who had kidnapped Gilad Shalit.” The author declares, „One cannot argue against the Shalit family; they are doing what we would expect any family to do. But the army of p.r. experts who have jumped onto the story and are mobilizing the masses of marchers while playing on our tear glands are like the man who looks for a coin he lost in the wrong street because the street on which he lost the coin is unlit.” The paper condemns the spokesman who referred to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks last Thursday as „a death sentence,” and says that the Prime Minister must, „draw a line in the sand and say, ‘Until here.'”
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The Jerusalem Post discusses the status of the children of foreign workers in Israel: The foreign workers, „who today number between 250,000 and 400,000 – half of them illegal – did not only toil. They fell in love and married and had children, probably more than 2,000 children, who were sent to schools to study with young Israelis their age – reading, writing and arithmetic – in Hebrew. Thankfully, if very belatedly, our leaders are now taking the first modest steps toward the formulation of a coherent immigration policy. An interministerial committee appointed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has adopted naturalization criteria for about 800 out of an estimated 1,200 offspring of illegal foreign workers. The Jews of Israel are a majority with their own sovereign state, and that majority should be perfectly capable of instituting policies that grapple with the challenge of foreign workers, rather than punish those workers’ children.”
BreuerPress-info
