Summary of Editorials from the Hebrew Press – May 15th, 2012

The Jerusalem Post examines the connection between freedom and the Nakba, in light of the Nakba Day ceremony staged by Jewish and Palestinian students at Tel Aviv University, and states: “by permitting the ceremony to be held on campus, the university’s president was reaffirming the democratic principles of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.”

Haaretz asserts: “The historic controversy over the responsibility for the Palestinian people\’s tragedy is still pending. It will continue to hover over both nations, and its explosive potential will continue to grow as long as the conflict is not settled at the negotiating table.” The editor adds that nothing should “prevent us from empathizing with the suffering of the other nation living in Israel.”

 

Yediot Aharonot speaks out against bureaucratic waste. The author argues that "The conditions for efficiency lie in a sharp division of all public service tenures into two personnel fleets – to increase each year the professional fleet and reduce each year the bureaucratic fleet."

Ma\’ariv remarks that "In Israel over the past seven years, [State] Comptroller [Micha] Lindenstrauss is the only person to have exacted accountability from those who took no account of anyone."

Yisrael Hayom notes remarks in Yediot Aharonot and the Washington Post attributed to the Obama administration regarding the peace process, and says that "It is possible to understand from this, at least from what is being said, that Washington is convinced that if there was no progress until now, it was the fault of the Israeli Government." The author further states that "Not only does the American administration ignore the real reasons for the diplomatic deadlock between Israel and the Palestinians, but rather it intends, if and when it remains in place after November, to return to the diplomatic line which characterized it at the very beginning. In other words, by applying pressure to Israel (even though President Obama himself acknowledged afterwards that he was mistaken). Even worse is that the Palestinians will view this as a golden opportunity to extract themselves from the diplomatic cold in which they stuck themselv! es when they turned to the UN, against the wishes of the US, and they will be further ncouraged to cling to their positions, which until now have frustrated the renewal of negotiations."

 

[Giora Eiland, Ofer Shelah and Zalman Shoval wrote today’s articles in Yediot Aharonot, Ma\’ariv and Yisrael Hayom, respectively.]