Summary of editorials from the Hebrew press
BreuerPress
Two papers discuss Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon’s recent remark to The Times of Israel to the effect that the Cabinet – including a majority of its Likud ministers – would vote down any two-state proposal:
Ma’ariv notes that Jibril Rajoub was denied permission to enter Israel last week in order to attend a Meretz conference. The author notes that Rajoub has recently said – in Arabic media – that if he had a nuclear weapon he would use it on Israel and that all of Israel is occupied territory, and asks: „Let’s assume that he would have received a permit to attend the conference; would anyone in that party have dared to stand up and criticize the honored guest for his words of incitement?” The paper says: „In order to understand that Rajoub is not alone, Deputy Minister Danny Danon jumped in and determined that the Government opposes a Palestinian state. Rajoub wants a greater Palestine and Danon, his political twin, wants a greater Israel…The claim that the Palestinians refuse two states for two peoples, and Israel accepts it, could be one of Israel’s most important cards because Rajoub is not alone. Abu Mazen also supports two states but not for two peoples. Now Danon comes and makes it clear that the problem is Israel. One can assume that Israel’s enemies sent Danon a bouquet of flowers.”
Yediot Aharonot says that „Danon is like the boy in Hans Christian Andersen’s
story about the emperor’s new clothes; the boy is not prepared to take part in
the charade and declares that the emperor is naked.” The author notes that there
are others in the Likud who are saying the same as Danon and asserts that they
have put Minister Tzipi Livni in a difficult position: „If she stays in the Government she is liable to become a bitter joke in Israeli politics, in which she has a public reputation for integrity, by lending her hand to a charade.” The paper wonders when Livni will „no longer hold the hem of the naked emperor’s robe, and leave the government.”
Yisrael Hayom believes that Hezbollah’s growing involvement in Lebanon will lead to Sunni revenge attacks against Shi’tes in Lebanon, „which is liable to find itself dragged into a Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian struggle, as is occurring in Iraq, against the background of the Syrian civil war – a struggle which is claiming victims on a daily basis with no end in sight.”
Haaretz comments on “The investigation of the 2009 shooting attack at the Barnoar gay youth center in Tel Aviv,” and asserts: “The Barnoar attack cannot be divorced from the homopobia in Israeli society, and legislation to compensate its victims is one important step in the war against it.”
