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Summary of editorials from the Hebrew press
Today’s issues: Lorde and the BDS bullies, the Interior Ministry has failed at citizenship, the problem with Trump’s Jerusalem announcement, and the failure of the Arab Spring.
The Jerusalem Post comments on the pressure the BDS movement put on the young New Zealand singer Lorde, causing her to cancel her forthcoming concerts in Israel, and states: “By caving in to BDS pressure, Lorde let herself be used as a political tool and joined a short list of performers who backed out of shows in Israel out of some distorted sense of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.” The editor believes that “By canceling her concert, Lorde places herself in the same camp with totalitarian regimes like North Korea, Yemen and Syria, which blasted Israel last week as the main source of instability in the region during a General Assembly vote against US President Donald Trump’s recent decision on Jerusalem,” and adds: “Lorde is supposed to play music. Unfortunately, this time she let herself be played.”
Haaretz contends that the Interior Ministry has turned its bureaucracy into a whip with which to abuse citizens and legal residents, and even to create opportunities for the state to reassess their citizenship, and asserts: “Citizenship is a constitutional basic right. It is not a prize for good behavior, nor is it a tool with which to punish people whose religion, way of life or ideology isn’t to the government’s liking.”
Yediot Aharonot believes that US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was problematic, not only because the decision is trivial and lacking any practical meaning, and adds: “The US president was right to declare that Israel’s borders in Jerusalem would be determined in future negotiations with the Palestinians; but by failing to address the other side of the border, he encouraged the opponents of an agreement on both sides and reduced the chance for a serious peace process anytime soon.”
Israel Hayom marks the seventh anniversary of the Arab Spring, which began in mid-December 2010 in Tunisia and spread like wildfire to surrounding countries and even to Syria, and states: “What should have been the Arab world’s finest hour became another nail in the coffin of Arabism and incalculably improved Iran’s and Russia’s strategic footholds in the region.”
[Giora Inbar and Eyal Zisser wrote today’s articles in Yediot Aharonot and Israel Hayom, respectively. |
