1. DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT IN OLMERT AFFAIR; STATE DEMANDED REVERSAL OF ORDER OF TRIAL
2. Illegal:
STATE EXPROPRIATED HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF SHEKELS WHICH IT COLLECTED IN WEST BANK INSTEAD OF INVESTING IT IN THE PALESTINIANS.
3. BARAK DECIDES NOT TO EXTEND CHIEF-OF-STAFF ASHKENAZI'S TERM.
Ashkenazi to retire in ten months. Leading candidates for Chief-of-Staff: Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz.
4. PRESS COUNCIL PRESIDENT ON SECURITY AFFAIR GAG ORDER IN ISRAEL: "RIDICULOUS AND SADDENING."
Former Supreme Court Justice Dalia Dorner said that gag order is absurd, while details of the affairs are widely covered in many media outlets abroad.
MA’ARIV
1. HAZING
Chief-of-Staff shocked: Yesterday morning Lt.-Gen. Ashkenazi was summoned to Defense Minister's Bureau in order to hear that his term would not be extended for an additional year. In the evening, he absorbed another humiliation, when Barak made his decision public. Prime Minister who was aware of what was happening did not even call.
YEDIOT AHRONOT
1. Assessment: Maj.-Gen. Yoav Gallant – Barak's leading candidate for Chief-of-Staff post.
CONFRONTATION
Barak's decision not to extend Chief-of-Staff Ashkenazi's term let out all the dirty laundry. Ashkenazi: I never requested extension.
YISRAEL HAYOM
1. Defense Minister announces: Ashkenazi's term - four years as determined by law; Chief-of-Staff: I did not request a fifth year. His confidants:
IT'S ALL PERSONAL
The fifth year that was not and will not be: Lt.-Gen. Ashkenazi will complete term in February 2011. In the background: Bad blood between Chief-of-Staff and Defense Minister. Chief-of-Staff confidants: Barak humiliated Ashkenazi. Barak confidants: We did not intend to.
WALLA!
1. "ASHKENAZI HUMILIATION WAS UNNECESSARY"
In response to Defense Minister's announcement, Lt.-Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi clarified that the extension of his term "was not even on the agenda."
2. THIS MORNING: SIX MORTARS FIRED AT ESHKOL COUNCIL
Mortar rounds were aimed at Eshkol Regional Council area but they exploded in Palestinian territory. No injuries and no damage. Area security forces put on alert.
NANA10
1. BARAK'S BUREAU CLAIMED – WE TRIED TO CONTACT THE IDF SPOKESPERSON WHO WAS OUT SICK."
Tension in security echelons in wake of Barak's announcement that Chief-of-Staff's term will not be extended. In battle of the bureaus, the Chief-of-Staff's confidants are claiming that Barak's announcement was not coordinated with them; Minister's Bureau notes that they did not succeed in reaching IDF Spokesperson.
2. SIX MORTARS FIRED AT ESHKOL REGION FALL IN THE GAZA STRIP
Mortar rounds fell in open areas. No injuries and no damage.
[Headlines for Walla! and Nana10 are from their websites as of 10:40]
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SUMMARY OF OP-EDS FROM THE HEBREW PRESS
Two papers comment on a local security affair that is subject to a sweeping court-imposed gag order, even as the details are readily available over the internet on foreign-based blogs and news sites:
Yediot Aharonot protests that local media representatives were not even invited to the initial hearing and avers that "Judges, like any person, rule erroneously when they see only one side of the coin. And what follows is self-evident: The orders cause the affair to become inflated, stoke the curiosity of those who surf the internet and leads to creative and agitated media analyses. The result is that the order achieves a contrary effect: Everyone knows about it, and the court orders, which should be treated with respect, approach the ridiculous." The author concludes: "What a pity that orders cannot be issued against idiocy as easily as they can against publication."
Yisrael Hayom says that "Given the media reality of the internet, websites, blogs, Twitter and the free flow of information, it is indeed sad to see a report published abroad while Israelis cannot read about it in the Hebrew media." However, the author believes that "It is the media's attempt to circumvent the gag order that has turned the issue into an international 'story'." The paper concludes that "Given that the whole world already knows, the gag order should be lifted, and quickly, so that every Israeli will be able to know what is going on and form his or her own opinion."
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Ma'ariv discusses the refugee issue and asserts that "The world knows only about the 'nakbe' of one side – the Palestinians." The author believes that the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab/Islamic countries, and the property that was forcibly confiscated from them, gets far less attention than it deserves, both in Israel and around the world. The paper applauds recent legislation that has helped Israeli Holocaust survivors but declares that every Israeli schoolchild "must know about the contribution of the Jewish communities to life in Arab countries and about their suffering in the wave of pogroms that rocked their lives in the 20th century in Fez in Morocco, Iraq, Tripoli, Syria and Yemen."
The Jerusalem Post decries "the disgraceful plight of our Holocaust survivors," and declares that the State of Israel bears the responsibility for comforting its own Holocaust survivors in their last years, a moral obligation that takes precedence over other moral demands such as caring for Sudanese refugees or aiding the earthquake-struck Haitians.
Haaretz criticizes the Interior Ministry's Population and Immigration Authority for its arbitrary discriminatory and prejudicial policies regarding the entrance of visa-holding tourists to Israel, in light of the expulsion of six tourists over the Passover holiday, and states that "The authorities' conduct was both unjust and injurious to Israel's good name. David Ben-Gurion, who lent his name to the gateway by which most visitors enter the country, hoped to see Israel become "a light unto the nations," not a red light with a towering barrier closed arbitrarily."
[Boaz Okun, Amos Regev and Linda Menuhin wrote today’s articles in Yediot Aharonot, Yisrael Hayom, and Ma'ariv respectively.]
