Summary of Editorials from the Izraeli Press

Summary of Editorials from the Izraeli Press
Yediot Aharonot notes that „In order to ensure the existence
                                and stability of the banks, and assure their account holders, the Bank of Israel and the Finance Ministry recently decided to formulate an innovative new
                                document of principles.”  The author remarks that „In the US, 250 banks have closed in the last two years; 4,000 banks have gone bankrupt and have been closed in dozens of countries since the height of the financial crisis in 2008.  In Israel, not one bank has closed.”

Ma’ariv opines that „The success of the universities in generating donations for international research is a strategic tool for enhancing research in the country and making it into a world academic center.”

Yisrael Hayom refers to Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day and asks: „Where did those young people find the courage, the strength, the determination to live for two years in the forests, to be hunted by those who slaughtered their families and to hunt them?  To awaken each dawn without knowing that you will see the dusk.  To lose the friends who fought at your side without knowing if tomorrow it will be you.  And after the war they immigrated to Israel and built homes and raised families.  But the families remained small because so many remained there.  The Holocaust survivors arrived to their safe harbors, and with them the former partisans, living witnesses to heroism, who have lived here quietly and modestly, under an ever-present heavy shadow.  In the past years they have begun to leave us.  Indeed a generation is disappearing.  Every day, in the streets or in a public!  park or   in a hospital
                                corridor, we do not really notice them.  We do not know which of the elderly were there, or perhaps even fought there.  But they are the generation that brought us into the world.  They are the generation that allowed this country to come into being.  They are worthy of a bow of respect.  This is a generation that we must not forget.  Ever.”

The Jerusalem Post comments on the hero’s welcome received by Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement’s Northern Branch and a convicted Hamas collaborator, upon his return last Monday from restrictive bail conditions in the UK, and attacks Israel’s judiciary for not daring to punish Salah’s undisguised subversion and incitement to rebellion in recent years. The editor notes that his entry to Great Britain was banned due to his recurrent hate-speech activities, and was subsequently detained in London after it emerged that he had entered the UK in defiance of the exclusion order. Salah subsequently won an appeal, because the court believed “he is not considered a menace in Israel, whose citizen he is and where he is free to essentially do as he pleases.” The editor declares that “What we do in Israel clearly has repercussions abroad. If we brush hate-mongering under the carpet, we can’t expect foreigners to behave m! ore   bravely than we do,” and concludes: “The bottom line is that while Britain’s home secretary thought Salah was dangerous, Israel prefers inaction parading as enlightened tolerance.”

Haaretz is dismayed by the apathy displayed by dozens of spectators at an incident this week on a Tel Aviv beach, during which several young men had sexual intercourse with a half-naked young woman for several hours, and states that despite the inaction of the police, “the crux of the matter is the behavior of the beachgoers and workers.” Finding the public’s indifference “deep and horrifying,” the editor wonders: “Have we really become so obtuse, so brutalized, that even such a spectacle like this fails to shake us from our apathy?”