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Media Summary

12/01/2015

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The Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Times, Independent, Metro, Independent i, Daily Express, Daily Star, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror and City AM all mention in their coverage of yesterday’s solidarity rally in Paris that the event was attended by a large number of international leaders, including Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Guardian and Independent i both cover a speech which Netanyahu delivered prior to the rally at Paris’s Grand Synagogue in which he said that Israel is home and a haven to French Jews. Meanwhile, the Independent includes a feature on French Jews who have already immigrated to Israel and are urging relatives to follow the same path. The Times reports that the four Jewish victims of Friday’s attack on a kosher delicatessen in Paris will be buried at the historic Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem this week.

The Guardian online says that jury selection begins this week in a New York civil court for a case worth hundreds of millions of pounds, which is being brought by the families of victims of seven terror attacks committed by Palestinians in Israel between 2001-4. The suit accuses Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestinian Liberation Authority (PLO) officials of responsibility for the attacks, which were carried out by groups affiliated to both bodies.

The online edition of the Guardian also reports that US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif on Wednesday in order to try to give impetus to talks between Iran and the P5+1 nations (US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) over Tehran’s nuclear programme which resume on Sunday in Geneva.

The Times online says that an Egyptian court has sentenced a student to three years in prison after he was found to be in “contempt of Islam” as a pronounced atheist.

The Guardian online says that US-led forces carried out 19 air strikes over the weekend against ISIS targets, nine of which were situated in Syria.

In the Israeli media, yesterday’s solidarity rally in Paris is the overwhelming main story. It is the top item in Yediot Ahronot, Maariv, Haaretz and Israel Hayom, whose headline quotes Prime Minister Netanyahu who pledged to fight together with the rest of the Western world against terrorism. There is significant commentary regarding Netanyahu’s participation in yesterday’s event, with both Maariv’s Ben Caspit and Yediot Ahronot’s Nahum Barnea critical of his behaviour. Caspit accuses Netanyahu of “making his way determinedly from the second row (where he was placed) to the row of leaders walking in front (which he took over), behaving in a mourning parade as in an election rally.”

Haaretz says that Netanyahu was asked not to attend yesterday’s rally for fear that it would divert attention to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. However, when both Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett announced that they would fly to Paris, the article says Netanyahu insisted on attending.

Meanwhile, Israel Radio news says that the four Jewish victims killed in Friday’s attack on a kosher supermarket will all be buried in Jerusalem tomorrow.

In other news, Haaretz prominently reports on an announcement yesterday that the third slot on the list of Moshe Kahlon’s new Kulanu Party will be filled by Tzaga Malko, a broadcaster and prominent figure in the Ethiopian-Israeli community.