Monday, December 5, 2005

HA’ARETZ

1. 113 days to elections: 10 political corruption cases in the legal process.

POLICE SOURCES: POSSIBLE TO TRY HANEGBI.

2. INCREASING ANGER AT PERETZ IN LABOR: "TAKING OVER CENTERS OF POWER."

3. DONATIONS TO YIGAL AMIR VIA RIGHT-WING NON-PROFIT ASSOCIATIONS ARE TAX EXEMPT.

HATZOFEH

1. For first time – rocket falls near homes at moshav Shuva.

KASSAM ROCKET ONSLAUGHT WIDENING.

Yesterday: Six Kassam rockets fired at western Negev communities.  Two moshav Shuva women in shock.  IDF responds with ineffectual artillery fire.  Right sharply attacks Sharon: "He must answer for catastrophe."

2. HALUTZ: "DIPLOMACY AGAINST IRAN HAS FAILED."

3. Hatred.

NETANYAHU: "THERE IS DANGEROUS POPULISM"; PERETZ: "MAGIC HAS WORN OFF."

Two attack each other at Globes business conference.

4. Love story.

SHARON: "PERES CAN CHOOSE ANY JOB."

Thus PM told press conference about his new Kadima colleague – Shimon Peres, who said: "Arik – best man to set up coalition."

5. BASI: CONSTRUCTION WORK AT YAD BINYAMIN COMPLETED.

6. JUSTICE MINISTER SIGNS ORDER TO EXTRADITE ZE'EV ROSENSTEIN TO US.

MA’ARIV

1. And now: Iranian nuclear issue takes over 2006 campaign.

ELECTIONS AND THE BOMB.

Ariel Sharon: "We cannot accept situation in which Iran has nuclear weapons. We hope that the Security Council will act."  Amir Peretz: "I hope that the Israeli Government will do what it must, without extraneous considerations."  Benjamin Netanyahu: "I will lead the next government to stop the Iranian threat, including all necessary actions."  Shaul Mofaz: "Remarks are nationally irresponsible.  Nuclear issue must be removed from election campaign."

2. THE WINTER THAT REFUSES TO COOPERATE.

No rain expected this week either.

3. ISRAEL IN 7^TH PLACE IN YOUTH CRIME.

YEDIOT AHRONOT

1. Father quit, son is still pulling strings.  Main activists in Sharon camp:

"OMRI SHARON INSTRUCTED US TO VOTE FOR SILVAN."

Two weeks before primaries: Sharon activists recruited to support Silvan Shalom.  Senior Kadima official: "I intend to influence my people in Likud Central Committee."  Omri Sharon: "I am not dealing with these elections."

2. Following Yediot Ahronot expose:

DEFENSE MINISTRY INVESTIGATING "KURDISH CONNECTION."

Heads of companies that employed reconnaissance unit veterans to train Kurdish security personnel in northern Iraq summoned for investigation.

______________________________

SUMMARY OF EDITORIALS FROM THE HEBREW PRESS

Hatzofeh pays tribute to retiring Meretz MK Yossi Sarid's integrity and reminds its readers that he characterized Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as, "the most corrupt person in Israeli politics."

Yediot Ahronot calls for Meretz to align itself with the Labor Party under MK Amir Peretz.

Yediot Ahronot, in its second editorial, says that the, "Netanyahu and Sharon governments," have done nothing for development towns in the country's peripheral areas but says that even though it is, "limping and bleeding, it is too early to eulogize the Likud as a duck that will cook in its own soup."

Yediot Ahronot, in its third editorial, suggests that Prime Minister Sharon and others will use the Iranian nuclear issue, "to divert the elections from a socio-economic track," and urges voters to, "immunize themselves against 'spin'."

The Jerusalem Post writes: "Two Kassam rockets shattered the twilight calm yesterday in the western Negev's Moshav Shuva, near Netivot... Thus far, the IDF's response to rocket fire has proved ineffective. Hitting back after the rockets and mortars have been fired and their crews have fled from the launch sites is pointless. Even if not a single rocket were fired but the arsenal were merely enlarged, southern Israel would become hostage to enemy whims and Israeli responses would be thereby inhibited. What's sorely needed is not a tit-for-tat approach, but an intolerance for the copying in the south of what was negligently allowed to be amassed on our northern border. Over five years after the withdrawal from Lebanon, Hizbullah has not been disarmed and the Lebanese army has not taken control of the border, as promised before that withdrawal."

Haaretz comments: "It seems that Peretz's main mistake has been in his judgment about the essence of the campaign for control of the government. On the morning of his victory, the political views that he elaborated were straight to the point: He spoke of the urgent need for negotiations with the Palestinians in order to reach an agreement, and even outlined some of its parameters. Immediately thereafter, he took care to circumscribe the extent of his concessions via two parameters accepted by most of the public: He rejected a Palestinian "right of return" to Israel and the redivision of Jerusalem. These policy lines are sufficiently flexible to enable Labor to present the voter with practical and realistic proposals - both for opening bilateral negotiations and for implementing further unilateral moves in the West Bank; both for leading a governing coalition and for being an active and influential partner in a coalition led by Sharon. But since these declarations, Peretz has fallen silent with regard to the conflict. It seems as if he has become a prisoner of his own propaganda - namely, that his "social agenda" will decide the elections. He must understand that even a person who is convinced by the force of his socioeconomic arguments will nevertheless demand, and rightly, that he prove that he is fit to be prime minister."

[Yael Gvirtz wrote today’s editorials in Yediot Ahronot.]