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Yediot Aharonot suggests not eulogizing Bashar Assad just yet and notes that "The majority of the Syrian people live modern lives and refuse to march backwards into the bosom of radical Islam, which degrades minorities and is trying to impose over Syria and its women the severe restrictions of the Sharia. Assad and his regime promise that things that are happening in other Arab countries will not occur in Syria. Halab, for example, is a modern city open to elegant women and to Western culture. The Syrians will not forfeit their freedom from religious constraints, which the current regime promises them. The rebels want revenge, Sharia laws and the development of the peripheries. Those do not go together."
Ma\’ariv remarks that Egypt was in a storm this past week because of a friendly letter that the new ambassador presented to Israel. But the hostile atmosphere towards us is not the result of Morsi\’s policy – but rather that of Mubarak\’s."
Yisrael Hayom says: "Take an inexperienced Republican candidate against a serving president with limited achievements in foreign affairs, add to that a noisy announcement in The New York Times on direct negotiations between Washington and Tehran on the nuclear issue (denied by both sides), sprinkle in the mixture a tie in the most recent survey by NBC and by the Wall Street Journal – and you will understand why debate number three in Florida tonight becomes critical in the fascinating race to the White House. Even if the economy will decide the elections, suddenly Tehran has (as in 1980), according to The New York times, a say in it."
The Jerusalem Post comments on the New York Times report, publicly denied by the White House, “that the United States and Iran have agreed in principle for the first time to one-on-one negotiations to stop Iran’s march toward nuclear weapons.” The editor notes that while “Tehran has repeatedly used negotiations as nothing more than a stalling tactic to push off sanctions or military actions – overt or covert – while advancing toward nuclear arms capability,” he nevertheless believes that “negotiations should be given ‘one last chance.’” The editor concludes: “As sanctions continue to take their toll and a military strike becomes more likely, Americans and citizens of other Western countries should know that every option for a peaceful resolution to the dispute with Iran has truly been exhausted.”
Haaretz discusses the gaps between Jews and Arabs in every stage of higher education, and claims these are “the result of endless years of educational inequality.” The editor is hopeful that a new program approved by the Council for Higher Education\’s Planning and Budgeting Committee will improve the situation, and calls on the Education Ministry to “declare war on the gaps in the schools, and hopefully prevent some of the damage the Planning and Budgeting Committee is trying to repair.”
[Amnon Shamoush, Yitzhak Levanon and Boaz Bismout wrote today’s articles in Yediot Aharonot, Ma\’ariv and Yisrael Hayom, respectively.]