Which way the wind’s blowing
The autumnal weather is a hot topic in Tuesday’s news, as is the possibility of winter elections
Tuesday’s papers report on the blustery weather the country experienced Monday, and also on less literal winds of change: Elections may blow into town early next year, and Iran’s economy is being swept off its feet by gale-force sanctions.
Israel’s first day of autumn weather made headlines in Yedioth Ahronoth: Wind toppled trees and clouds dumped a few droplets of rain on various parts of the country. The paper reports that downed trees damaged sukkahs and power lines, with some 5,000 people going powerless on the holiday because of the outage. In Kiryat Ata, in northern Israel, a fallen tree damaged two cars, several power lines, and an electric pylon.
Early elections could be called for February or March 2013 and coalition parties are beginning to prepare, Haaretz reports. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may call for the dissolution of the Knesset because of his “difficulty in arriving at an agreement over the national annual budget for the coming year,” the paper writes. Polls predict that Netanyahu’s Likud will easily win an election.
A senior Likud party member told Haaretz on Monday that unless there is an unexpected development on the budget front, early elections will be held. Netanyahu was scheduled to meet with coalition leaders this week in order to see whether a compromise on the unpopular austerity budget could be reached.
The paper quotes senior Likud party members saying the prime minister will not be able to pass the budget in the Knesset and that he will likely call for elections in February.
Aner Shalev comments in Haaretz that Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations last week, while praised by political friend and foe alike, was “the most apocalyptic” and the most “militant and paranoid” one he’s made in some time.
“We have no doubt that building a synagogue and receiving a Torah scroll in this special place will bestow heavenly protection upon us from all foreign threats, including the Iranians,” the source said.
“If in the past Netanyahu focused on threats to Israel’s survival and on presenting it as a victim, now the existential danger has spread to the entire world. Superpowers who have thousands of hydrogen bombs are shaking like leaves in the face of Iran’s 70 percent of an atom bomb, pulled out like a comic strip drawing at the decisive moment,” Shalev writes.
Maariv’s main headlines report on a murder and a car accident that occurred over the first day of Sukkot.
Vladimir Dranov, 23, was stabbed to death outside a Haifa nightclub on Monday night, his birthday. Security cameras captured images of the attack, and investigators are trying to identify the perpetrator.
In nearby Kiryat Motzkin, a 75-year-old driver hit a mother at a crosswalk, severely injuring her. Revital Goren managed to push her infant son’s stroller out of the way before she was struck, likely saving the child’s life, Maariv reports.
The tabloid prioritizes these two human interest stories over a report that Netanyahu and the Foreign Ministry have proposed the “mother of all sanctions” against Iran. According to the paper, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry are trying to convince the European Union to levy a full import and export embargo on Iran. The new sanctions would include electronics, cars, and foodstuffs.
Like Maariv, Yedioth Ahronoth also reports on the apparent efficacy of sanctions against Iran’s economy after softer news. “Netanyahu doesn’t believe in sanctions, but it is evident that they are starting to work,” the paper writes, citing the plummeting value of the Iranian Rial against the dollar.
Iran’s citizens are “those paying from their pockets the price of vanity,” according to the paper, noting that the rial dropped 17% against the dollar on Monday and is down 80% since October 2011.
Israel Hayom reports that the Dimona reactor complex will now house a synagogue and Torah scroll. The religious facility is the first of its kind at the reactor, where until now observant staffers prayed in makeshift quarters like bomb shelters.
A synagogue at the reactor is a “fantastic combination of holiness and power,” a person involved in donating the Torah scroll told Israel Hayom.
The new synagogue seats 300 and was completed hastily so it could open in time for next week’s Simhat Torah holiday, the paper reports.
“We have no doubt that building a synagogue and receiving a Torah scroll in this special place will bestow heavenly protection upon us from all foreign threats, including the Iranians,” the source said.
The paper also publishes a Times of London report on the rift between Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’s al-Quds Brigade.
Khamenei reportedly grew cross at Kassem Suleimani over the fact that Iran has invested $10 billion in the Syrian regime and President Bashar Assad has failed to turn the tide of the battles. Khamenei may have dismissed Suleimani from his post for this reason, the paper writes.
