8 Jan 2007

(Government Press Office)

Haaretz - http://www.haaretz.com
Yediot Aharonot - http://www.ynetnews.com
Globes - http://www.globes.co.il
Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com
Hazofeh - http://www.hazofe.co.il

Haaretz states that the government approved a scandalous bill  - submitted by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon - to import 3,000 foreign laborers to work in agriculture. They would join the 26,000 foreign workers already employed by the Israeli agriculture industry. The bill runs contrary to previous government decisions to gradually reduce the annual quotas for foreign workers in agriculture, construction and industry.

Yediot Aharonot suggests that Israeli politics will be in a holding pattern until the Winograd Committee interim report and the Labor Party primaries and says that, "Until then everything is stuck."

Hatzofeh notes that both Israel and Egypt were dissatisfied by last Thursday's Sharm e-Sheikh summit between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and asserts that, "The trip to Sharm was unnecessary."

Yediot Aharonot, in its second editorial, criticizes IDF officers who leaked information to the UK Sunday Times regarding alleged plans to attack Iran's nuclear facilities with – inter alia – low-yield tactical nuclear warheads.

Yediot Aharonot, in its third editorial, derides the Government's lack of policies and budgets to fight poverty.

The Jerusalem Post comments that if there is one arena where international politics is set aside to an unusual degree, it's sports. When Mushir Salem Jawher of Bahrain decided to participate in the Tiberias Marathon last week, he had no idea he was the first Arab national to participoate in a sporting event in Israel. Most countries would share the pride of their national's victory in an international competition. Not so Bahrain, judging from its actions. Two days after the race, the Bahrain Athletic Union expressed its "shock" and stated that it "deeply regrets what the athlete has done." Bahrain promptly revoked his citizenship. Clearly, as the reaction to Jawher's victory shows, the animus against even the slightest conn ection to Israel remains strong, even in Arab states widely considered to be relatively modern, moderate, and Westernized.

[Yael Gvirtz and Moshe Ishon wrote today’s editorials in Yediot Aharonot and Hatzofeh, respectively.]

Reproduced by permission of Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem. 
 
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Archive/Editorials/2007/Editorials+8-Jan-2007.htm