A7News: 'The media will do everything so that the left wins'

Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report
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Sunday, Mar. 03 '19, כ"ו באדר תשע"ט





HEADLINES:
1. 'THE MEDIA WILL DO EVERYTHING SO THAT THE LEFT WINS'
2. SUSPECT IN MURDER OF ORI ANSBACHER TO BE INDICTED FOR MURDER
3. 22 YOUNG ISRAEL SYNAGOGUES OPPOSE NAT'L ORG'S DEFENSE OF MERGER
4. 'LOOK WHAT THEY'RE SAYING IN THE US ABOUT THE PERSECUTION'
5. POLL: 61 SEATS FOR LEFT-WING BLOC
6. POLL: NETANYAHU CAN'T FORM COALITION
7. LABOR CANDIDATE 'SURPRISED BY GAZA-AREA CRYBABIES'
8. BERNIE SANDERS HOLDS KICKOFF RALLY IN BROOKLYN


1. 'THE MEDIA WILL DO EVERYTHING SO THAT THE LEFT WINS'
by Hezki Baruch

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke this morning, Sunday, with ministers and MKs in the Likud, referring to the recommendations against him that could lead to an indictment.

"At the end of this election, the choice is between a weak left-wing government led by Lapid and Gantz and a strong right-wing Likud government under my leadership. The media will do everything so that the left wins," he said. "They waited for the attorney general. The mountain gave birth to a mouse, and that mouse will soon run away," he said.

"Lapid and Gantz are trying to hide and camouflage as if they are not the left, and the media is trying to hide all sorts of things about Gantz. No, not what you think. They hide the fact that a year after Operation Protective Edge, Gantz participated in a memorial ceremony for a thousand Hamas terrorists killed in the operation. Look what the media hides about Gantz! That's left. Gantz says he endangered Golani soldiers so as not to hurt the Palestinians, that's left."

"Today we hear that Lapid and Gantz say they will not sit with us but will sit with Tibi. Michael Biton said it this morning: They will sit with Tibi in the government! Their whole strategy is based on the idea that Lapid and Gantz are not left. We will make the truth clear to the public, the Likud can catch up and win."


2. SUSPECT IN MURDER OF ORI ANSBACHER TO BE INDICTED FOR MURDER
by Arutz Sheva Staff

The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Sunday extended until Thursday the arrest of Arafat Arafiah, the 29-year-old resident of Hevron suspected of murdering teenager Ori Ansbacher in the Ein Yael area of ​​southern Jerusalem.

At the same time, the Jerusalem District Prosecutor's Office filed a statement that it intended to file an indictment against Arafiah for the murder by Thursday.

Police said, "From the moment that the body of 19 year old Ori Ansbacher was found in the Ein Yael area of ​​Jerusalem, a joint investigation team of the Israel Police and the Shin Bet worked to locate every piece of information, finding and evidence that led to the identity of the murder suspect and his arrest by Yamam police fighters. Subsequently many investigative activities were carried out to collect evidence linking the suspect to murder and other offenses."

Channel 12's weekend news quoted the terrorist, who hardly planned anything - other than to bring a kipa (skullcap) in his pocket.

"I bought the kipa two weeks before [the attack], so that I could enter Israel without them suspecting me and so that they would not know I was in Israel illegally," Arafiah told the investigators. He also worked alone and did not inform anyone of the intentions during the weeks leading up to the attack.

"I left my home to murder a Jew, because of the occupation and because of the attitudes towards Arabs at Jerusalem checkpoints," he said.

Arafiah left Hevron hiding a knife in his clothes, and crossed the forest near Ein Yael. The first person he met was Ori Ansbacher, a National Service girl from Teko'a, who was sitting on a rock and writing in a notebook.

"I saw a girl, and told her in Arabic, 'Hi, I'm an Arab.' I saw that she didn't understand me. I told myself - 'I'm going to have her, whether she consents or not,'" he said.

At that point he pulled out a knife, stabbed her three times, and dragged her by her hands 150 meters (164 yards) away. Ori tried to fight and even yelled, but other than the two of them, there was no one around. He stabbed her another few times, gagged her with the scarf she was wearing, and after he bound her hands with a belt he raped her and escaped the scene - but not before he took her mobile phone, pulled out the SIM card, and threw it under a rock.

At that point, Arafiah returned to Bethlehem in a taxi which took him to the Ramallah-area Al-Bireh. Nothing about his escape route was planned: After he hid the knife, which was later found among bags of cement near the mosque he was hiding in, he was found by Israeli counter-terrorism officers.


3. 22 YOUNG ISRAEL SYNAGOGUES OPPOSE NAT'L ORG'S DEFENSE OF MERGER
by Ben Sales, JTA

Twenty-two synagogues that belong to the national Orthodox Young Israel movement have condemned its defense of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political deal involving the Otzma Yehudit party.

The synagogues called on the National Council of Young Israel to stop making political statements. Young Israel is an Orthodox synagogue association with 175 member congregations. Its political statements tend to the right.

"In recognition of the current, highly divisive political environment in the United States, Israel, and beyond, we … call upon NCYI leadership to immediately cease making all political pronouncements," the synagogues' statement said Friday, adding that "all past statements issued by NCYI leadership about political matters — including but not limited to its recent statement about Otzma Yehudit and the Israeli political process — do not represent the diverse views within our individual synagogue communities…"

The signatories included synagogue leaders from New York, New Jersey, California, Florida and other Jewish population centers.

Also Friday, 38 religious Zionist American rabbis signed a statement condemning the merger of the Otzma Yehudit party with Jewish Home. Netanyahu had helped broker the deal in a bid to boost right-wing partners ahead of April elections.

"This violent, racist party has no place in the Religious Zionist movement," the rabbis' petition, organized by clergy at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York, read.

On Monday, the National Council of Young Israel's president defended Netanyahu's orchestration of the merger. While many major American Jewish groups condemned the merger as normalizing bigotry, NCYI called it a matter of political calculus.

Following a backlash, NCYI's president clarified that the statement does not necessarily speak for individual synagogues. Days earlier, a prominent scholar of the Holocaust, Deborah Lipstadt, quit her Young Israel synagogue in Atlanta to protest the NCYI's support for Netanyahu.


4. 'LOOK WHAT THEY'RE SAYING IN THE US ABOUT THE PERSECUTION'
by Tal Polon

Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday referred to the announcement on Thursday of the recommended corruption charges against him. He posted a video to his Facebook account from the "Fox and Friends" program on Fox News, urging Israelis to "see what they're saying on one of the most viewed programs in the US about the persecution against me."

In the video clip, Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth is seen saying that Netanyahu's opponents "have not been able to beat Netanyahu at the ballot box, so they're trying to beat him through these trumped-up...he calls it a witch-hunt, call it what our president calls it...trumped-up charges."

"What they're charging him with is, first of all, he got a cigar from a friend, which strikes me as a good thing. Second of all, he got positive press from a website apparently, due to changes in regulations. If you actually look at that website, it's been overwhelmingly negative coverage to him.

"This is because the deep state in Israel, the bureaucracy there, hates him, they can't beat him. The people love him, they appreciate what he's done for the state of Israel and, as a result, he will fight this and he will beat this."


5. POLL: 61 SEATS FOR LEFT-WING BLOC
by Arutz Sheva Staff

A poll carried out by "Panels Politics" for Channel 13's "Hadashot Haboker" gives the the left-wing bloc headed by Gantz an advantage of 2 seats over the right-wing bloc.

According to this poll, Gantz and Lapid's party wins 38 seats, the Likud receives 30 seats and the third largest list is Hadash-Ta'al with 9 seats.

The Labor Party wins 8 seats, and the union of Jewish Home-National Union-Otzma Yehudit gets 7 seats. A similar number of seats are expected for UTJ. Meretz and the New Right receive 6 seats, Kahlon gets 5 seats and Shas 4 seats.

The parties that do not cross the threshold: Yisrael Beytenu, Orly Levy's Gesher, Moshe Feiglin's Zehut and the United Arab List (Ra'am)-Balad.

According to this poll, the left-wing bloc has 61 seats, while the right led by Netanyahu has 59 seats.

It should be noted that 14 percent of voters say they have changed their position following the legal developments in the Netanyahu cases.

Knesset Member David Bitan (Likud) responded to the results of the poll and noted that his party believed that the Attorney General's recommendations would have implications for the results, and that in his assessment the media's leverage in the matter of the attorney general's recommendations was significant in changing the attitude of voters to the parties.

However, he assessed that the public reaction to the attorney general's announcement would eventually cool down and voters would ultimately return to their original parties.


6. POLL: NETANYAHU CAN'T FORM COALITION
by Arutz Sheva Staff

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cannot form a coalition, a new poll published by Kan 11 shows.

The poll, conducted by TNS, shows the Likud party weakening while the leftist "Blue and White" party gains strength.

A Friday poll, the first taken after Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced his decision to indict Netanyahu, showed the center-left gaining a majority for the first time.

According to the TNS poll, Blue and White receives 37 Knesset seats, while the Likud receives 29. The New Right, Ashkenazic-haredi UTJ, and Arab Hadash-Ta'al list each receive seven seats.

The poll also showed the right-wing bloc as losing seats due to three parties failing to pass the electoral threshold: Gesher, Yisrael Beytenu, and Zehut, which for the first time comes close to passing the threshold.

The Labor party, Meretz, Kulanu, United Right (Jewish Home, National Union, and Otzma Yehudit), Sephardic-haredi Shas party, and the Arab Ra'am-Balad would each receive five Knesset seats.

Approximately one-third of the public believes that Netanyahu should quit his position immediately after the recommendations are published, and another third believes he should wait until he is indicted after a hearing. Only a quarter of Israelis believe that Netanyahu should continue in his position despite the indictment.

Forty-two percent of Israelis believe Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit allowed the media and Israel's left to influence his decision.

The poll included 550 Israelis from around the country who represent the Israeli adult population. It has an error margin of 3.7%.


7. LABOR CANDIDATE 'SURPRISED BY GAZA-AREA CRYBABIES'
by Arutz Sheva Staff

Reserve General Tal Russo, who is Labor's number two, on Saturday called Gaza-area residents "crybabies" for their reaction to the constant barrage of incendiary and explosive balloons sent into Israel from Gaza.

"I was involved mostly in the Disengagement from northern Samaria, but I also saw what was happening in Gaza. It was the right decision from a security perspective. It's not like we left Gaza, Gush Katif was a small 'hallway,' which turned into an explosive hallway. The number of people injured in the period leading up to the Disengagement was huge. Looking back, I think Arik (Ariel - ed.) Sharon saved us from the chaos that was happening in Gush Katif and Netzarim."

During the 2005 Disengagement, Israel evacuated Jewish communities in northern Samaria and Gaza, in exchange for a promised peace. Since then, Israel and Gaza's Hamas have fought several wars, each time ending in a promised "cease fire." Occasional rocket fire has continued, and in spring 2018, Gaza terrorists have begun sending incendiary and explosive kites and balloons into Israeli territory, with the intention to harm civilians, specifically children.

"A peace agreement will demand that we evacuate settlements. We need to find a way to evacuate and compensate [residents] and make the smaller settlements part of the settlement blocs. I'm not talking about the pre-1967 borders. In my mind, the large settlement blocs - no way will we dismantle them, but there's also no way we'll do nothing and let ourselves turn into a non-democratic country."

Regarding the incendiary and explosive kites and balloons, Russo said, "I think that it would be proper for residents of the Gaza-area towns to show a little bit more resilience. I was surprised by how they acted like crybabies when it came to the kite terror."

"It's important that the residents know that expressing weakness helps the other side's motivation... When I was Commander of the Southern Command, I was lucky enough to be with three amazing people....they knew how to show strength."

Eshkol Regional Council Head Gadi Yarkoni condemned Russo and said, "What Reserve General Tal Russo said is outrageous and removed [from reality]. Especially since it's coming from him."

"Residents of the Gaza-area towns have shown resilience and amazing patience for 18 straight years already, despite and in spite of the challenges and the continued terror against our towns. Residents of Gaza-area towns are busy with development, absorption, and strengthening their communities.

"I want to remind Tal Russo, who left his position as Southern Command Commander six years ago - the residents of Gaza-area towns have been through Protective Edge and the exposure of the tunnel network just under their towns. This network was created and built, by the way, during Russo's term. Gaza-area residents are still paying the price for the policy of ignoring 'drizzles' which today come in the form of incendiary kites and balloons and the sight and smell of burned fields and nightly disruptions of order which do not allow our children to sleep.

"As someone who listens to educators, social workers, parents, and residents crying every day about the difficulties faced by the children who live with this continued reality, I will continue to represent the reality here and insist on a solution and long-term quiet.

"I will not allow this to be called being a 'crybaby.' From Tal Russo, I would have expected more understanding and humility towards Gaza-area residents."


8. BERNIE SANDERS HOLDS KICKOFF RALLY IN BROOKLYN
by Arutz Sheva Staff

📹 To watch the video: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/259790

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on Saturday held his kickoff campaign rally in Brooklyn, NY, ABC News reported.

Hundreds of fans attended the rally, which was held in Brooklyn College.

Sanders' campaign raised $6 million in the first 24 hours after his campaign announcement.

"It'll be stronger, it will be involving more people, it will be more diverse," Sanders told ABC on Friday.

A January poll by ABC News and Washington Post showed Sanders placing third, behind former Vice President Joe Biden and California Senator Kamala Harris.

However, according to Fox News, a more recent Granite State Poll showed Sanders as the leading Democratic candidate, followed by Biden and then Harris.