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Yediot Aharonot says, "[Turkish Prime Minister] Erdogan presented his relations with Syria as proof of his stance in the Arab world. But the relations between the two did not bring about an end to the killing in Syria. The bottom line is that the Turkish influence in the Arab Middle East is very small."
Ma’ariv contends that "The main lesson from the 29th of November 1947 is that the State of Israel is part of the world, part of the global system, part of the historic process of nationalist movements which realized their historic dreams, part of the United Nations." The author notes that "On the day on which the UN recognized the right of the Jewish nation to territory, it recognized the right of the people who sit here, Palestinian Arabs, to a state."
Yisrael Hayom says that "December will mark a full year since the protests in Tunisia which opened the wave of protests known as the ‘Arab Spring’, and which quickly developed into an ‘Islamic Winter’. Following Tunisia came Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Morocco – each one with a different experience and different circumstances in the change of its structure of governance and in the relationship of the central regime with its populace. The uprisings are far from over. The American pull-out from Iraq will also influence the balance of power. So too, the manner in which the Iranian nuclear crisis ends will exercise its influence for years to come."
Haaretz writes: "The decision by the Israel Defense Forces senior command to freeze implementation of the Segev Report, which recommended establishing full equality among men and women in the army is another aggravating example of the IDF’s continuing capitulation to the demands of religious extremist rabbis and officers. Women’s service in the IDF is the clearest symbol we have of the State of Israel’s secular character. The right of women to serve in the IDF with full equality, to fully utilize their abilities and fulfill their personal ambitions in all the tasks that are open to men, stems naturally from the fact that the law requires them to serve, just like men. Proper integration of women in the army still has a way to go, but now it seems to have hit a barrier erected by a political group that wants to drag the army and all of Israeli society back into the Dark Ages."
The Jerusalem Post comments: "There are only two plausible explanations for this week’s anti-climactic ending to the super-hyped case against entertainer Margalit Tsanani. Either the police and prosecution initially made a mountain out of a molehill (which is unconscionable) or they later made a molehill out of a mountain (which is cowardly). Either way, they come out badly. They leave us with lots of unanswered questions and exacerbate our impression that there’s much amiss in their operations."
[Tulin Daloglu, Rubik Rosenthal and Alexander Bligh wrote today;s articles in Yediot Aharonot, Ma’ariv and Yisrael Hayom, respectively.]