Two papers comment on Prime Minister Netanyahu's announcement that Moshe Kahlon will be appointed Minister of Finance in the new government:

Haaretz writes: "The first appointment Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced was that of Moshe Kahlon as finance minister. Kahlon will enter office after a successful term as communications minister, due to the cellular revolution he brought about, and an unremarkable term as social affairs minister." The paper comments that "Israel's new finance minister is facing a difficult challenge," adding that "in view of the forces that will act against Moshe Kahlon, he will have to remain loyal to the interests of the broad public that elected him."

Globes writes: "Kahlon is coming to the Ministry of Finance first and foremost to lower housing prices. He has to do it fairly quickly, get the credit for it, and do it in a way that does not cause too much damage to the banks, those who have already taken a mortgage, and those who have invested their savings in an apartment for investment purposes. One piece of good news awaits Kahlon: in the absence of an approved 2015 budget, government spending has not increased, while tax revenues continue to flow. In other words, there is money in the budget that can be used for concessions to the middle class that everyone swears by."
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Yediot Aharonot comments on the dangers of a growing rift between Israel and the U.S., and the West as a whole: "The gap between the political elites in the West (who don’t care what we do with the Palestinians) and their electorate (which is finding it increasingly difficult to see us as an enlightened democratic state) will eventually turn into a political force. The West's elites don’t care about the Palestinians, they care about their voters. Their voters have had enough of us. If we continue the current refusal policy, the elected representatives will seek to offer their voters moral gestures which will earn them votes."

The Jerusalem Post comments on last Saturday night's attack on three Jewish teenagers wearing kippot [skullcaps] at a South African nightclub: "The fact that Jewish symbols are becoming targets shows how deeply anti-Semitic views are ingrained in some places. It should be as normal to wear a kippa on the street in South Africa, Paris, or Malmo as it is for a Sikh to wear a turban or a Muslim woman to wear hijab." The South African Jewish Board of Deputies "called on all South Africans, Jewish or not, to attend a film-screening at a cinema of their choice this Saturday night, March 28, wearing a kippa or hat" in a campaign of #KippasAgainstHate.

Israel Hayom devotes an article to Yehuda Avner, who passed away yesterday at the age of 86. "Avner served in senior roles in the Foreign Ministry including the Israeli Embassy in Washington and was subsequently appointed ambassador to the Court of St. James's and Australia. His record as a diplomat and statesman epitomizes the outstanding quality of Israeli diplomats of that era. What distinguished Avner was his absolute determination not to engage in partisan politics" - serving as adviser to five Israeli prime ministers and senior adviser and speech writer for Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. He thus established a reputation as a role model for the consummate civil servant."

[Avi Temkin, Aviad Kleinberg and Isi Leibler wrote today's articles in Globes, Yediot Aharonot and Yisrael Hayom, respectively.]