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Summary of editorials from the Hebrew press
Today’s issues: Police censorship, the cowardly decision in the Hebron shooter’s case, Netanyahu’s “fold” on the Temple Mount, and making mountains out of molehills.
The Jerusalem Post discusses the police force’s restriction of access to journalists trying to cover the unrest in and around the Old City of Jerusalem, and states that while there is good reason to be critical of news outlets that intentionally present Israel in a negative light or fail to contextualize stories in an attempt to delegitimize the Jewish state, “it is not the job of the police to ensure that news coverage of Israel is fair.” The editor argues that “Attempts to use force to prevent individuals considered by police to be enemies of Israel ultimately backfire,” and attests: “The only way to fight negative news media coverage is to ensure that a broad spectrum of news outlets is given access to what is going on, whether it be in Jerusalem or elsewhere. Allowing diverse perspectives to be articulated in a free and open atmosphere lies at the heart of democracy. The discerning intellects of the public – not the police – will decide for themselves which “narrative” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to accept.”
Haaretz believes that the Military Court of Appeals missed a rare opportunity to drive home a moral edict of supreme importance in the Elor Azaria case, which has had the country in an uproar for the last 16 months and has revealed deep divisions in society, the army and the political system, and states: “Azaria was convicted of manslaughter, but the lenient sentence he received undercuts the severity of the crime. What message has Israeli society sent via its judges to the soldier now serving in the territories, or the civilian who will be drafted into compulsory service or called up for reserve duty tomorrow? That manslaughter is a minor error? ”
Yediot Aharonot states: “It’s too easy to say that Prime Minister Netanyahu folded, or caved under the pressure of Palestinian threats to continue their struggle to the death until security measures recently installed by Israel were fully removed from the Temple Mount,” and concludes that while installing the metal detectors was the correct decision, “removing them had nothing at all to do with attempting to pacify the Arab masses. Netanyahu knows that is impossible. The rationale behind the final decision had nothing to do with folding, but rather with showing the Americans who really sits on the other side of the table as Trump prepares to launch his peace initiative.”
Israel Hayom reviews the security storm of the past two weeks, which shows that the IDF has been irrelevant to the events, and submits that “the Palestinians have been able to neutralize the IDF by inventing new tactics for every conflict.” The author notes that while the IDF has shown unique abilities in the recent past in neutralizing threats from Syria, the Gaza Strip and perhaps even from more distant arenas, but declares: “as the conflict continues in other ways, the IDF has to think of new and flexible measures to impose ‘painful days’ on the other side. The constant effort to contain the situation is a type of avoidance.”
Globes comments on the tendency of humans to turn molehills into mountaisn, such as in the case of the metal detectors installed at the entrance to the Temple Mount to prevent terrorists attacks and other instances, and asserts: “Making mountains out of molehills has been a human activity since the beginning of recorded time, of course, but of late it has been intensified by the dramatic increase of political/social/ideological/religious polarization characterizing contemporary societies around the world, but especially in the Middle East and what continues to be referred to as „The West”. It is a dangerous activity, because it diverts attention from truly significant issues and because it exacerbates the quantum of hatred in the world, already at levels not seen in Europe since the 1930’s, and in the US since the years leading up to the Civil War.”
[Alexander J. Apfel, Amnon Lord and Norman Bailey wrote today’s articles in Yediot Aharonot, Israel Hayom and Globes, respectively. |
