(Israel Government Press Office)
Ma'ariv says that if one judges by the number of people who have been killed in wars since the UN was founded, approximately 85 million, as opposed to the number who were killed in the two world wars, 83 million, then the UN has spectacularly failed. The author asserts: "There is no greater horror, vis-a-vis international law, than the use of non-conventional weapons against civilians. A crime against humanity, about this there is no argument. But in light of the horror, the UN is paralyzed. In practice, the UN has not succeeded in preventing any war, bloodshed or genocide. But it is very engaged in condemning Israel." The paper says that "Non-democratic countries have an automatic majority," at the UN and suggests: "Other bodies affiliated with the organization, such as the Human Rights Council, have become a joke." The author recommends that democratic countries consider withdrawing from the UN and forming an alternate organization.
Yediot Aharonot discusses a private legislative initiative supported by several women MKs from both the coalition and the opposition, including the Jewish Home's Orit Struk and Labor's Merav Michaeli, which would place working conditions for women in Judea and Samaria on an equal footing with their counterparts in pre-1967 Israel. The author says that "The proposal would apply Israeli law to the occupied territories, which will encourage a diplomatic, coalition and possibly legal uproar, because there are those who claim that it would contravene international law," and also claims that the proposal is discriminatory because it would apply such an equality of conditions only to those women – Israeli and Palestinian – who work for Israeli employers. The paper avers that this is a way of excluding, and discriminating against, Palestinian women because the vast majority of Palestinian women who are employed work for Palestinian employers and asks: "Why should a woman's rights depend on the identity of her employer?"
Yisrael Hayom suggests that the upcoming Rosh Hashanah holiday affords us an opportunity to focus on something other than our national troubles. The author says: "The troubles are here. The anger won't go away. Syria is nearby. One's heart skips a beat over the scandalous shortage of housing for young people. The level of Israeli academia is in a worrying state of relative decline. This is all true but none of it is relevant as the holiday approaches."
The Jerusalem Post welcomes the appointment Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis as the new chief rabbi of Britain, but notes: “With British Jewry increasingly split between a burgeoning ultra-Orthodox population and growing Reform, Liberal and Masorti (Conservative) communities, living up to the role of ‘rabbi of all of Britain’s Jewry’ has become increasingly difficult.” The editor wishes Rabbi Mirvis success in his new position, and is hopeful he will become “a leader who can summon the strength to speak out against anti-Semitism and the delegitimization of Israel, while serving as a source of communal unity and religious inspiration among British Jewry, and a bridge to other religions.”
Haaretz believes that the Nativ (literally, “road”) organization, a governmental agency dealing partly in intelligence, partly in foreign relations and partly in immigration and absorption, no longer has any reason to exist. The editor adds: “Nativ is apparently one of those organizations that, once created due to some long-ago need, continue to exist out of sheer inertia,” and concludes: “But its right to exist depends on an affirmative answer to one simple question: If it didn’t exist, would there be any reason to create it today? Since the correct answer to that question would not be affirmative, it’s time to thank it for its services and abolish it.”
[Ben-Dror Yemini, Gideon Eshet and Dan Margalit wrote today’s articles in Ma'ariv, Yediot Aharonot and Yisrael Hayom, respectively.]