HEADLINES FROM THE IZRAELI HEBREW PRESS
HA’ARETZ
1. CIVIL WAR GOING WILD IN SYRIA
(…). Barak: Assad will collapse within weeks.
2. NETANYAHU SUPPORTS MOSQUES LAW: „NOT TO BE MORE LIBERAL THAN EUROPE”
Prime Minister expressed support for Yisrael Beytenu proposal to ban mosques from calling worshippers loudly.
3. Forty new housing units in Efrat.
WITH BARAK’S APPROVAL, ETZION BLOC WILL EXPAND TOWARDS BETHLEHEM
MA’ARIV
1. DEFENSE MINISTER: ASSAD REGIME WILL FALL IN THE COMING WEEKS
Barak added that, „It will be a blessing to the Middle East.” (…).
YEDIOT AHRONOT
1. Twenty children in tents, in Jerusalem’s bitter cold.
CHILDREN WITHOUT A HOME
(…)
2. SYRIA: ARMY BATTLING THE ARMY
(…).
3. TWICE WORLD CHAMPION.
Yesterday: Lee Korzits, 27, windsurfer from Michmoret, won gold medal at World Championships for the second time.
YISRAEL HAYOM
1. (…).
„ASSAD ON VERGE OF FALLING”
Thus estimates Defense Minister Barak. „Syrian President will fall within a number of weeks; his fall will be a blessing to the Middle East.” (…).
2. CHAMPION
History: Israeli windsurfer Li Korzits won World Windsurfing Championship for the second time. „I’m proud to hear our anthem here.”
WALLA!
2. EFRAIM HALEVY: SYRIAN NON-CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS ARE LIABLE TO TRICKLE [INTO HOSTILE HANDS].
Former Mossad Director Efraim Halevy warned this morning that if Assad’s regime falls, Syria’s non-conventional weapons are liable to trickle into hostile hands.
NANA10
1. US TO AMERICAN COMPANIES: REVEAL YOUR BUSINESS TIES WITH SYRIA AND IRAN
[Headlines for Walla! and Nana10 are from their websites as of 10:55.]
______________________________
SUMMARY OF OP-EDS FROM THE IZRAELI HEBREW PRESS
Yediot Ahronot analyzes the crisis in the Euro zone and says that, „While the current crisis is mainly filling the newspapers’ economic pages, the root of the problem is political. The EU leaders’ guiding assumption was expressed by Nicolas Sarkozy at the last Davos conference: Without the Euro, there is no EU and without the EU, the peace that has characterized the continent for the past 70 years, is in danger. For those who have forgotten, the Baltic republics and the countries of eastern and central Europe were preceded by soviet republics or people’s democracies. Forty years ago, Spain, Portugal and Greece were military dictatorships, to say nothing of Italy and Germany a little over 60 years ago. Hanging in the balance today is not a currency but the political stability and peace of Europe.”
Ma’ariv discusses the situation vis-à-vis Gaza and contends that, „What has been happening since March of this year between Gaza and Israel is a kind of cat-and-mouse game in which each side changes roles. Nobody is interested in bringing this simmering pot to the point of explosion, but in continuing – as for now – to play the game by the existing rules. Hamas, the strongest organization in the Strip, is comfortable with the continuing process by which it is strengthening itself, with deepening its control in the Strip and with winking at Fatah against the background of the reconciliation agreement. While Israel indeed has plans for an operation in the Strip, those in power prefer to leave them deep in the drawer and to deal with several more pressing issues. So, in the meantime, the cat-and-mouse games will continue between Israel and the Gaza Strip. They might seem simple, but they are replete with tensions and risks. Three years after Operation Cast Lead and the way to another operation is becoming shorter.”
Yisrael Hayom refer to Technion Professor Dan Shechtman’s winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and asserts that, „We could all learn from the private example of Prof. Shechtman, who swam against the current and won in the end, thanks to the strength of his belief in the correctness of his path.”
BreuerPress-info