As Israeli editors see it

By JEWISH REVIEW

article created on: 2010-10-15T00:00:00

Yediot Ahronot believes that President “Obama wants peace not just to be re-elected, but because he is a genuine leader who is interested in bringing about real change in the world.” The author asserts, “There are no concessions without pain,” and cautions, “Let us choose our pains wisely because the most painful concession is liable to be that of the United States over us.”

Ma’ariv criticizes extremist tendencies among the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria and avers, “What is not legitimate is the settlement movement’s complete blindness to the existence of the Palestinians, their motives, their aspirations and the divine image in them.” The author claims, “The problem is that the distance between blindness and fanaticism…is very short.”

Yisrael Hayom asserts, “From a purely legal and constitutional point of view, the demand to swear allegiance to ‘a Jewish and democratic state’ as a condition for receiving citizenship is not invalid,” and adds, “It considerably raises the relatively low threshold that has existed in Israel up until now vis-à-vis naturalization, and does not demand even minimal knowledge of Hebrew, or of the history and culture of the state of Israel.” “However, one must wonder at the prudence of raising it thus. Jews, their spouses and descendants of Jews, even if they are not Jews according to religious law, can acquire citizenship through the Law of Return, bypassing the naturalization route. The new amendment will mainly affect non-Jews seeking to acquire Israeli citizenship and, therefore, is liable to be seen as racist and to arouse great opposition.”