Yediot Aharonot says that, "It’s amazing how things have turned upside down. During the political struggle over the establishment of the State of Israel, the pre-state Jewish community was practical, sophisticated and flexible. The Palestinian side, on the other hand, embargoed the process and turned its back on the international bodies concerned with the question of partition. The Palestinians could have received about half of the Land of Israel, but in their stubbornness and total refusal to recognize the other side’s rights, they chose war and lost their opportunity. And now, when a kind of completion of the November 1947 Partition is on the agenda, in the form of recognition of a Palestinian state, we are behaving as the Palestinians did then, and like them we are leaving the initiative and the international legitimacy to the other side."
Haaretz writes: "The events of Nakba Day are neither a ‘reminder’ nor a ‘threat,’ and they certainly aren’t an attempt to destroy the State of Israel. Rather, they reflect the Palestinians’ fundamental historical demand for an independent state with recognized sovereignty, within whose framework the refugee problem, too, can be solved. The Nakba Day events simply expressed in a different form the demands the Palestinian leadership has been putting forth for years, and that Israel has evaded. It is not the IDF that is supposed to provide solutions for these ‘incidents,’ but the government. Yet the latter still has trouble understanding that the next stage is not another intifada, but international pressure and a battle against the great powers."
The Jerusalem Post comments: "Sunday’s incidents at the Syrian border near Majdal Shams, across the Lebanon border at Maroun a-Ras and on the border with the Gaza Strip mark a formidable challenge to Israeli security. Over the decades, open warfare gave way to terrorism and then to missile attacks. Now Israel faces ‘nonviolent’ infiltration of its sovereign borders, the uncompromising demand for a ‘right of return’ that would destroy it as a Jewish state, an unholy Palestinian alliance with a terror group openly bent on Israel’s destruction, and a diplomatic campaign for recognition without reconciliation. Though some of the tactics are new, the goals have all-too plainly not changed since 1947."
Ma’ariv relates to the striking railroad workers and asks, "Since when are workers participating in a legal demonstration carted off and arrested?" The author contends that "workers in Israel, in all professions, are losing their rights, foremost of which is the right to form an association. The right to form a union is a basic right of citizens in a democratic state." The paper concludes that, "The fight being waged against them is liable, in a few years, to lead to a situation in which it will be harder for everyone to earn a living."
Yisrael Hayom concludes that "Netanyahu’s Knesset speech was like an all-you-can-eat buffet, everyone could find something he wants. He was far-reaching in two diverging directions. On one hand, there was a clear resonance that there is no Palestinian element interested in making peace with Israel. On the other hand, he sounded off on the ‘settlement blocs’, and the settlers have already sounded the alarm about what was not mentioned."
[Gadi Taub, Bambi Sheleg and Dan Margalit wrote today’s articles in Yediot Aharonot, Ma’ariv and Yisrael Hayom, respectively.]