HEADLINES FROM THE IZRAELI HEBREW PRESS

 

1. Judicial appointments committee meets today:

SMALL CHANCE OF REACHING AGREEMENT ON SUPREME COURT JUDGES

 

2. NETANYAHU DELAYING LEFT-WING NGO LAWS

 

3. MEDICAL RESIDENTS RETURNING TO WORK AND NEGOTIATIONS

 

4. ONE KILLED AND HUNDREDS WOUNDED AHEAD OF EGYPTIAN ELECTIONS

 

1. DOCTORS: RETURNING TO NEGOTIATIONS

(…).

 

2. [SUPREME COURT PRESIDENT] BEINISH WANTS [FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL] MAZUZ ON SUPREME COURT

(…).

 

3. UNDER ULTRA-ORTHODOX PRESSURE: DANCERS PRACTICING BEHIND DRAWN CURTAINS

Director of Jerusalem cultural center orders concealment of dance studio’s windows. Tomorrow: Troupe to hold protest demonstration.

 

1. Doctors to High Court of Justice: We agree to return to negotiations.

APPARENT: MEDICAL RESIDENTS RETURNING TO WORK

(…).

 

2. ASSESSMENT: SELECTION OF SUPREME COURT JUDGES TO BE POSTPONED

(…).

 

1. (…).

MEDICAL RESIDENTS: WE WILL RETURN TO NEGOTIATIONS

(…).

 

2. CAIRO BURNING AGAIN, LIBYA CELEBRATING AGAIN

Egypt: One dead and over 700 wounded in violent demonstrations in Tahrir Square. Libya: Gadhafi junior, his son Saif, caught by rebels. And in Syria: Assad continues to slaughter away.

 

3. BARAK: IN LESS THAN A YEAR WE WILL BE UNABLE TO STOP TEHRAN

In Iran: Defense exercise at nuclear installations.

 

4. HIGH TENSION AHEAD OF MEETING OF JUDICIAL SELECTION COMMITTEE

Assessment: Supreme Court appointments will be postponed.

 

1. NETANYAHU DETERMINES: DISCUSSION ON RESTRICTING LEFT-WING FINANCING TO BE POSTPONED

After Ministerial Committee on Legislation approved, for first reading, bills liable to hurt financing of left-wing organizations, Netanyahu decided to postpone discussion of motions presented on the issue. Meaning: Proposals frozen.

 

2. MEDICAL RESIDENTS TO INFORM HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE: GOING BACK TO NEGOTIATIONS

 

3. BARAK: „WITHIN LESS THAN A YEAR, NOBODY WILL BE ABLE TO ACT AGAINST IRAN”

DM Ehud Barak in CNN interview: „It’s true that it won’t take three years, probably three quarters [of a year] before no one can do anything practical about it because the Iranians are gradually, deliberately entering into what I call a zone of immunity, by widening the redundancy of their plan, making it spread over many more sites with many more hidden elements.

 

1. MEDICAL RESIDENTS’ OUTLINE: DAILY UPDATES TO HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE AND LIMITING TALKS TO TWO WEEKS ONLY

 

2. BARAK: LESS THAN A YEAR TO POINT-OF-NO-RETURN ON IRAN

DM pessimistic on progress of Iranian nuclear project: „They have maybe nine months.”

 

______________________________

 

 

Yediot Ahronot notes that the introduction to the recently-issued National Insurance Institute Annual Poverty Report for 2010 states – inter alia – that, „Even the appreciable growth that has characterized the economy in six of the past seven years, has not succeeded in substantially changing the plight of the poor,” and adds that, „The sentence summarizes Israel’s social tragedy: The great surge in the middle of the first decade of the 21^st century has passed by the poor. The rate of poor families (20%), of poor people (25%) and of children living under the poverty line (35%) has not changed over the past five-or-six years of rapid growth.” The author asserts that, „one of the outstanding and exceptional characteristics of Israeli poverty is the high proportion of working poor,” and says that, „The phenomenon of poor wage-earners has worsened lately because many Arab and ultra-orthodox young people are joining the labor force – but at the bottom of the salary scale.” The paper claims that, „The latest poverty report can explain why enlightened public opinion was shaken by the price of cottage cheese and not by poverty. Only 10% of non-ultra-orthodox Jewish families, approximately 160,000 of whom are of working age, are below the poverty line. They are weak in every understanding and their voices are lost among the shouts of the Jewish middle class, which includes at least 1 million families.” The author concludes with another excerpt from the Poverty Report: „A policy of increasing social justice that abandons the poorest is not worthy of the name. It is impossible to have pretensions of doing justice if the weakest are left outside.”

 

Ma’ariv refers to the failed campaign to have the Dead Sea chosen as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World and wonders, „If the Government of Israel intends to deal seriously with the decline of the Dead Sea or whether the campaign of text messages was its last move to save it?”

 

Yisrael Hayom comments on the state of US presidential politics less than a year before the elections and observes that, „The possibility that Romney, who has succeeded in building an efficient organization and has formulated an impressive economic platform, will compete is a gloomy prospect for Obama.” The author contends that, „If the American economy continues to tank even in an election year, and given the assumption that the President’s maneuvering room in dealing with the economy continues to be limited by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, the Massachusetts’ technocrat’s route to Pennsylvania Avenue is paved, even if he is a Mormon. Against this background, one can only wait and see if Americans relate to Romney’s faith with the same degree of tolerance as they related to the fact that the Democratic candidate from Romney’s state who conquered the White House 51 years ago, John F. Kennedy, was Catholic.”