Ma’ariv says that, "Just as according to Hamas and the extreme Left, there is no Green Line and Tel Aviv is also a settlement, the Jewish Jihad thinks exactly the same thing." The author calls on the Government to take a far more aggressive line against the extreme nationalist Right, including cutting off funding to its institutions and indicting its leaders for incitement if such a step is warranted, and warns that "The damage is liable to be much greater than just local. They could drag us into riots in Jaffa, into another intifada."
Yisrael Hayom asserts that "The price tag criminals, whoever they are, are blind, have lost their way and are hurting both the moral strength of the State of Israel and the possibility of taking up the justice of our cause with clean hands," and adds that "the crazies who burn and desecrate Islamic religious sites are no better than those who desecrate Jewish cemeteries in Europe or the [Jewish] cemetery on the Mt. of Olives in Jerusalem." The author argues that the perpetrators of ‘price tag’ actions are endangering Jewish communities around the world." The paper says, "The gardens from whence sprang, perhaps, the noxious weeds of the most dangerous kind are known, marked out and few. These are neither settlers nor the Right, but the most marginalized and delusional elements. Even so, all rabbis must raise their voices in protest because the sin of silence is no less severe."
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Yediot Aharonot notes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will try again today to have the Cabinet approve the Trajtenberg committee recommendations and contends that "Netanyahu needs the Cabinet decision merely to flaunt a political achievement: ‘I set up the committee. I had the Cabinet approve the report. I am the leader.’" The author adds that, "After the Cabinet, the operative decisions will be submitted to the Knesset, which intends to discuss each and every article separately. The political battle there will be long and exhausting and cannot be sidestepped by the propaganda act of ‘approval in principle’, which has no substance and is unnecessary, unless somebody wants to make do with it and skip the real work."
Haaretz comments on the creeping extremism in Israeli religious schools: "The teachers from the state religious school system, who protested recently against the increasing extremism of the ultra-Orthodox nationalists in the system, is an expression of concern over a process that has been underway for more than a decade – the move of the state religious school system away from the mainstream and its being swept into ultra-Orthodox nationalism with roots in the settlements and the spiritual surroundings of rabbis from the settlements. The moderate religious public has been suffering for years from ultra-Orthodox nationalist coercion. The latter defines the moderates as "weak," accuses them of a lack of modesty, enforces separation between girls and boys in school and in the Bnei Akiva youth movement, but mainly conducts an aggressive campaign against feminist ideas and undermines every achievement in the area of the status of women. This process, which builds a strong wall against liberal and humanist values, and in fact against the mainstream, is blatantly encouraged by the government. The solution is not to divide the national religious school system in two, but to return the national religious school system to the mainstream."
The Jerusalem Post comments: "A group of organizations petitioned the High Court last week demanding that it order the state to pass legislation that permits civil marriages. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens, including about 300,000 immigrants who came from the former Soviet Union and their offspring, and some foreign workers who are gradually undergoing a naturalization process, are living in an untenable state of civil ambiguity. These people are seen as full-fledged Israeli citizens. They are expected to serve in the IDF, to fight and if necessary to die to defend the Jewish state. But because they are not considered Jewish according to Halacha and because they are not affiliated with any other religion, these Israeli citizens are denied a basic right – the right to marry whomever they please. Couples – one member of whom is Jewish and one is not – must travel abroad to tie the knot. Upon returning to Israel, their marriage is recognized by the state. If civil marriage is instituted in Israel, however, it must not be done via High Court edict, but rather only after an extensive public discourse, perhaps even a referendum, is conducted and our lawmakers are given ample time to discuss the matter. Individual liberty must be carefully weighed against the importance of maintaining the Jewishness of the State of Israel."