Two papers comment on PM Netanyahu’s address to the Knesset on Monday:
Haaretz comments that "On the eve of his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama and his address to a joint session of Congress, Netanyahu presented obsolete positions. He refrained from mentioning the 1967 borders as a starting point for a final-status arrangement, and committed to demanding a military presence along the Jordan River, to perpetuating the annexation of East Jerusalem and to demanding Palestinian recognition of Israel as the home of the Jewish people. PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the Knesset plenum on Monday strengthens the Palestinian claim that direct diplomacy with Israel is a dead end, and justifies the Palestinians’ petition to the United Nations to obtain international recognition for an independent state along the 1967 borders."
The Jerusalem Post writes: "In setting out his conditions for the creation of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu left many questions unanswered. Netanyahu’s ambiguity is the result of a desire to avoid a coalition crisis with his right-wing partners while keeping open the outside chance of resolving the conflict with the Palestinians and thus averting an international diplomatic crisis come September, when the UN General Assembly is expected to vote on a declaration recognizing a Palestinian state along the 1949 armistice lines.
Netanyahu’s vagueness is not helpful to Israel’s broader interests: In the absence of a detailed Israeli initiative, or at least a more specific delineation of red-lines, the international community lacks a clear sense of what Israel considers its vital needs. It is to be hoped that he offers more details of what he regards as Israel’s vital needs in his various addresses and meetings in Washington in the coming days."
Ma’ariv refers to the case in which former National Security Adviser Dr. Uzi Arad was forced to resign – but was not charged – after he was discovered to have leaked classified information, and asks, "What is the difference between Dr. Uzi Arad, who left the Prime Minister’s Bureau without punishment and attorney Liora Glatt-Berkowitz, a prosecutor who leaked [information from an investigation into allegations against former PM Ariel Sharon] and who was indicted?" The author concludes that, "Perhaps not all are equal before the law."
Yediot Aharonot discusses the State Comptroller’s annual report, which was issued yesterday, and suggests that, "Deep despair is the feeling that settles upon whoever sits down to read the State Comptroller’s annual report. Failures, incompetence, corruption and fecklessness leap out from every page." The author concludes that, "As long as we continue to get up in the morning with our heads bent, go to work and pay taxes and not ascertain that the state is using those same taxes to provide us with proper services – as opposed to padding chairs or perpetuating unemployment – the blame is on us."
Yisrael Hayom asserts that, "It was no coincidence that the organized gang of infiltrators that broke through the border fence near Majdal Shams carried pictures of Syrian President Bashar Assad," and contends that this week’s events on both the Syrian and Lebanese borders were planned and designed by Syria and its cohort Hizbullah in order to draw attention away from the brutal repression of demonstrators in Syria. The author avers that, "In his meetings in Washington, the Prime Minister will be able to point to the Nakba Day events in order to persuade his interlocutors of the vital nature of Israel’s security demands."
[Shaul Amsterdamsky, Ben Caspit and Zalman Shoval wrote today’s articles in Yediot Aharonot, Ma’ariv and Yisrael Hayom, respectively.]