Yediot Aharonot discusses the expectation that President Shimon Peres will present US President Barack Obama with a petition in which 70,000 Israelis call on the latter to release Jonathan Pollard. The author says: "With all due respect to Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, Gilad Shalit, Shlomo Artzi and the 70,000 others who signed petition for Jonathan Pollard\’s release, the chances are slim-to-none that Shimon Peres will bring him back home to Israel," and adds: "Any other result would be a miracle." The paper refers to the ceremony in which US President Obama will award President Peres the Presidential Medal of Freedom and contends that "Obama needs the ceremony and medal in order to win the hearts of more Jewish voters this November; Peres needs the ceremony and the medal because he wants the ceremony and the medal." The author believes that neither of them "will allow Pollard to spoil the mood and the festive ceremony."
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Ma\’ariv refers to the operation to deport illegal African migrants from Israel and believes that "On the day they know that the party is over, that Israel is putting a stop to this folly and that the few who enter are being put into tent encampments, in conditions that are less than entirely pleasant, this will be communicated very quickly to friends and family members who are en route. The exodus from Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt will be reduced, if not halted."
Yisrael Hayom discusses the controversy over integration of ultra-orthodox Jews into Israeli society. The author – the president of the College of Management Academic Studies in Rishon Lezion – suggests that the loss to the state "is not measured only by the monthly NIS 1,100 stipend to approximately 60,000 full-time ultra-orthodox yeshiva students, the funds for which come from the taxpayers, but in the NIS 1 billion loss to the GNP, which stems from the non-integration of the ultra-orthodox in the labor market," and adds: "The true loss to the state, to all of us, is not in the number of ultra-orthodox who are drafted, or not, into the IDF, but in the number of ultra-orthodox who do not go out to study, work and contribute to the GNP." The paper believes that "The short-term solution is the opening of campuses suited to their way of life and the establishment of special academies to prepare young ultra-orthodox Jews for f! uture academic study, and this alongside economic support by the state."
Haaretz criticizes the decision of the Israel Police to summon prominent activists from last year’s protests for questioning in an effort to ascertain if and how they will act in the coming weeks. Terming this “an illegitimate act,” the editor notes: “as the police itself admits, it was not a proper investigation of suspected crimes that were committed in the past or might be committed in the future, but an effort ‘to better prepare for the summer months,’" and calls for an immediate end to “this dangerous behavior.”
The Jerusalem Post strongly condemns the “hateful, rabidly anti-Zionist slogans” that were spray-painted on monuments at Yad Vashem last Monday night. Speculating that the vandalism was probably perpetrated by extreme fringe groups within the haredi community, the editor declares that their “distorted conceptions of Zionism must be eradicated,” and notes: “Ironically, Yad Vashem, the institution attacked by the vandals, can probably do the most to help educate the haredi community about the real causes of the Holocaust.”
[Eitan Haber, Ben-Dror Yemini and Prof. Zeev Neumann wrote today’s articles in Yediot Aharonot, Ma\’ariv and Yisrael Hayom, respectively.]