Summary of Editorials from the Hebrew Press
Two papers discuss the projected construction of an Islamic cultural center, including a mosque, next to the site of the former World Trade Center in New York City:
Yediot Aharonot notes that a recent poll shows that 2/3 of Americans oppose the construction of a mosque near the 9/11 site. The author recalls seeing graffiti on the New York City subway that asked, „Why here?” and accuses the mosque’s liberal proponents of gross insensitivity: „When the pursuit of what is right becomes self-righteousness, a yawning gap opens between liberals and a majority of the public, and the liberals themselves, the champions of tolerance, become intolerable.”
Yisrael Hayom says that „President Obama’s support for the construction of a mosque next to the site of the Twin Towers in New York has increased inter-religious tension in the US between Christianity and Islam,” ahead of next month’s anniversary of the terrorist attack itself. The author suggests that President Obama would do wise to learn from the late Pope John Paul II, who ordered the Carmelite nuns to move from the site of Auschwitz, and warns that „Otherwise, there is a danger that the upcoming September 11 memorial ceremonies for those were murdered in the Twin Towers will turn into loud, vocal demonstrations, and not in solidarity with the victims, and religious tension will surge.”
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Ma’ariv refers to Hezbollah Secy.-Gen. Hassan Nasrallah’s recent televised speech in which he accused Israel of being behind the assassination of Rafik Al-Hariri and notes that a prominent Arab commentator dismissed it by saying that „An Indian film is more convincing than Nasrallah’s appearance.” The author believes that „The Lebanese view the investigation of the Hariri murder as an opportunity to vanquish political murders in their country,” and asserts that Lebanese Prime Minister Sa’ad Al-Hariri, „knows that Israel was not involved in his father’s assassination,” but cautions that, „Nobody wants to make Nasrallah nervous.”
Haaretz complains that the Jewish State, itself founded by refugees from countries plagued by xenophobia, is treating asylum seekers cruelly, and even holding many in jail illegally. The editor acknowledges that „A sovereign state has the right to enforce immigration laws and deport foreigners seeking work and welfare rights,” but nevertheless calls on the Ministry of the Interior and law enforcement officials to „examine, without delay, the status of all the asylum seekers illegally incarcerated, and ensure that the prisons do not become a solution for the accommodation of non-criminals.”
BreuerPress-info
