HEADLINES FROM THE IZRAELI HEBREW PRESS
HA’ARETZ
1. SENIOR LIKUD FIGURES: NO DOUBT THAT BENNETT WILL BE IN THE GOVERNMENT.
Being said in the party: Despite the squabbling and the assumption that Netanyahu would prefer centrist parties, Bennett is a natural partner.
MA’ARIV
1. NETANYAHU TO DECIDE: GIDEON SAAR OR A PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENT TO FINANCE MINISTRY
One week before the elections and the Likud is already divvying out portfolios: Yaalon expects to receive Defense and Erdan Justice. Hanegbi, Elkin and Levin to be appointed ministers. Education to be reserved for Lapid.
2. RAIN PARALYZED RAFIAH SMUGGLING TUNNELS
Smuggling activity from Sinai to the Gaza Strip totally halted due to cave-ins and flooding of underground passageways during last week’s storm.
YEDIOT AHRONOT
1. SLATED [ECONOMIC] DECREES
VAT to rise to 18%, child allowances to be cut, state employees’ benefits to be cut, higher income tax, transportation projects to be postponed. (…) Senior Finance Ministry officials: Despite Netanyahu’s and Steinitz’s denials, there will be no alternative to raising taxes. (…).
YISRAEL HAYOM
1. Netanyahu: „Budget will be expanded; I do not think that we will have to raise taxes.”
ONE WEEK TO GO
(…).
2. „IRANIAN BOMB BY MID 2014”
Thus determines report by American institute. Pentagon: Iran eavesdropping on Israel from Syrian Golan Heights.
WALLA!
1. 16-YEAR-OLD SHOT AND KILLED BY IDF FORCE NEAR RAMALLAH.
Palestinian sources reporting that youth was shot and killed near separation fence in Budros, near Ramallah. IDF confirms shooting and says it was in response to attempted infiltration.
2. HAMAS TUNNEL EXPOSED DEEP INTO ISRAELI TERRITORY.
Thanks to rains, tunnel was exposed – one of the longest from Gaza into Israel discovered thus far – near IDF post, 250 meters from the fence. Tunnel similar to that which enabled Shalit abduction.
NANA10
1. PALESTINIANS: 17-YEAR-OLD KILLED BY IDF FIRE NEAR RAMALLAH.
2. IDF EXPOSES EXPLOSIVES TUNNEL DUG FROM SOUTHERN GAZA STRIP INTO ISRAELI TERRITORY<www.idf.il/1283-18075-EN/Dover.aspx >.
[Headlines for Walla! and Nana10 are from their websites as of 13:30.]
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SUMMARY OF OP-EDS FROM THE HEBREW PRESS
All three papers discuss various issues regarding next week’s elections for the 19th Knesset<www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Historic+Events/Elections_in_Israel_January_2013.htm>:
Yediot Ahronot says that even though Likud Beytenu will likely lose, „five to ten seats,” over what the two parties had in the 18th Knesset, „The humiliation will not prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming a government.” The author suggests, „The irony is that the more the Jewish Home strengthens at the Likud’s expense, the greater is Netanyahu’s need to bring in Lapid or Livni,” and adds, „In the campaign before the elections, [Jewish Home leader Naftali] Bennett is pushing him to the right; on the day after the elections, he will compel him to go left, into the arms of the centrist parties.”
Ma’ariv wonders why 50% of MKs are not women and speculates that the root of the problem lays in Israel’s electoral system in which voters cast ballots only for parties and not for actual MKs [see above link]. The author says, „Only when the public will have the possibility of directly electing MKs will it be possible for there to be more women in the legislature.”
Yisrael Hayom notes the plethora of Israeli politicians and Knesset candidates either with criminal records or who are currently involved in criminal proceedings and asserts, „For years, Israelis believed that a leader needed a skeleton in his closet in order to succeed. Therefore, they elected leaders in the knowledge that their ethics were suspect. They did not appreciate how big the skeletons were and how much they cost the country. Now, we are in the midst of a necessary correction.”
BreuerPress-info
