Four newspapers pertain to the anticipated arrival at Ben-Gurion International Airport tonight and tomorrow of hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists:
Yediot Aharonot suggests that "We have lost it. Signora Anita Smarkatchi, a 78-year-old Italian revolutionary, is approaching the runways of Ben-Gurion International Airport, and the entire country is on alert. The Israeli people are holding their breath. Tell me, have we all gone crazy?"
Ma’ariv asks: "What is all of the hysteria surrounding these fly-in activists?" and adds that "The publicity that we are doing for these people from abroad, whom we so dislike, saves them millions in PR costs that they otherwise would have had to pay themselves."
Yisrael Hayom notes that "The tension build-up towards today’s fly-in, the numerous statements surrounding it, causes us to wonder if it is not 1948, when the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon were threatening our very existence. We can suppose that if we came out of that story okay, we will do so again. Although then it was easier – all we had to do then was to battle armies, not ‘humanitarian activists.’" The author concludes: "There is no cause for panic if a few of the activists who do not disturb the peace at Ben-Gurion International Airport enter the country. The tough approach is reserved for those who do disturb the peace. We are in Israel, not Syria."
The Jerusalem Post feels that the flotillas, the ‘Nakba’ and ‘Naksa’ attacks on our borders and the plotted airport extravaganza are all part of “a formidable strategy to malign Israel as an apartheid-colonialist implant, sustained by war crimes. Its very existence is depicted as a wrong that must be redressed. The aim is to ostracize Israel and demoralize Israelis.” The editor declares that “The common denominator in all the above is erasing the post-1967 lines, then the 1949 armistice lines – and finally those of the 1947 UN Partition Resolution in favor of the ‘right of return’ (i.e. the right to inundate Israel with millions of hostile refugees), and concludes: “Hence, the airport front is no less vital and critical than are our naval or land frontiers.”
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Haaretz ponders the issue of transferring 84 bodies of terrorists to the Palestinian Authority, which he terms a “necrophilic farce, which makes Israel look delusional,” and declares: “A civilized country doesn’t traffic in bodies, not even the bodies of terrorists.” Pointing to the series of mishaps and contradictory announcements which have “provided yet more evidence of poor judgment and worrisome flaws in the decision-making process at the highest levels of government,” the editor asserts: “A society that ascribes special importance to the dignity of the dead should not adopt the practices of terrorist organizations when it comes to enemy bodies.”
[Eitan Haber, Shalom Yerushalmi and Boaz Bismuth wrote today’s articles in Yediot Aharonot, Ma’ariv and Yisrael Hayom, respectively.]