Summary of editorials from the Izraeli Hebrew press
BreuerPress
Two papers refer to yesterday’s murder of a soldier by a 16-year-old Palestinian terrorist:
Ma’ariv asks: „What will happen, in another 14 years, to the 16-year-old boy who murdered a soldier?” and predicts: „He will be released in another deal under American pressure, will be welcomed home with candies and hugs and, if we are lucky, he will call for peace.”
Yediot Aharonot asserts: ‘The latest escalation proves that the ground is seething and restive, and the motivation of terrorist elements to perpetrate attacks is growing,” and adds: „This may not be a third intifada, but it is, without doubt, a new wave of terrorism to which the security services have yet to find an effective response.” The author says: „In the territories there is an atmosphere of surging violence,” marked by a trend in which „Palestinians without terrorist backgrounds or professional training repeatedly succeed in penetrating the Israeli security envelope.” The paper calls for stepped-up intelligence efforts and a solution to the problem of Palestinians in Israel illegally. The author concludes: „As of now, it is true that most of the terrorist attacks end at a relatively low cost, but without a doubt, we are living on borrowed time: The moment it is decided to dispatch a terrorist to perpetrate a large-sc ale attack and blow up an Israeli bus, the latest attacks will be seen as the opening shot of the third intifada.”
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Yisrael Hayom says that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett should have recalled that the nine-month freeze on settlement construction from four years ago barely „caused a tiny and temporary delay in the settlements’ momentum,” before deciding that Israel would release Palestinian terrorists, as opposed to temporarily halting settlement construction, before the current round of talks with the Palestinians. The author comments on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent decision to countermand Construction and Housing Minister Uri Ariel’s announcement regarding preliminary planning for 24,000 residential units in Judea and Samaria and asserts: „Netanyahu is not angry at Ariel for foiling peace, but for creating a situation in which the world sees Israel as responsible for a rupture in the talks, if and when such a thing happens.”
The Jerusalem Post believes that Secretary Kerry’s strategy of keeping Israel out of the loop of information regarding negotiation with Iran is both flawed and troubling. The editor points out that “Israel has the most to lose from the American gamble that Kerry is currently engaged in,” and adds: “For Israel this isn’t just another expedient gambit. Israel’s very existence, in the most literal of senses, is on the line.”
Haaretz criticizes the new bills being advanced by Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch and Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino that would expand the powers of the police, allowing members of criminal organizations to be placed in administrative detention in accordance with the Defense (Emergency) Regulations. The editor asserts that “Criminal rings must be dealt with firmly, but administrative detention is not the answer. Casting off the rule of law is more dangerous than the crime organizations themselves,” and concludes: “A law expanding administrative detention to the criminal realm would be an unconstitutional violation of the right to freedom.”
