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Media Summary

Turkish Election Board agrees recount in Istanbul

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In the Financial Times, Mehul Srivastava writes: “Israelis learn to stomach Netanyahu as solid economy lifts spirits”. Srivastava argues that low unemployment and high incomes in Israel are helping voters swallow their distaste for the Prime Minister. In an election in which Netanyahu is on the defensive on nearly every front — his personal probity, the intractable conflict with Hamas, his embrace of an extreme right-wing ally to boost his chances of a coalition — his performance on the economy has become an asset that his rivals barely bother to challenge. Netanyahu began his current stint in office in 2009 and some economists call the years since a golden decade. Unemployment has plunged to a record low, incomes have soared to a record high, the deficit has largely been tamed, and Israel’s tech scene has produced salacious tales of multibillion-dollar deals and lured tens of billions of dollars of foreign investment into the high-wage sector.

In the Times, Roger Boyes writes: “All the tough guys want to be like Netanyahu”, arguing that the Israeli Prime Minister’s staying power is the envy of populist leaders. He is however, adds Boyes, no tinpot autocrat. Populist regimes admire the staying power of “Bibi” Netanyahu, who next week faces perhaps the most crucial election of his career, for potentially his fifth term in office. The Russian leader envies the Israeli army’s ability to operate under the radar. The Turkish president is a fan of Israel’s start-up economy, its military-technology complex. His survival answers the populist dilemma: how should leaders manoeuvre in order to project the power of a nation state and bend in their favour the supposed rules of the global order? Israel faces an existential not an imaginary threat. Putin plays into some kind of retro-fitted imperialist instinct by marching into Ukraine but Netanyahu has real enemies. And despite Netanyahu’s demagogy, he is constrained by a democratic framework far older than those that flowered (and are now partly wilted) in the post-communist, post-junta Europe of the 1990s. It is difficult to imagine a public prosecutor opening a fraud and bribery case against the Russian or Turkish leaders, as the Israeli authorities have done against Netanyahu.

The Financial Times, Independent and Guardian report that Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the ailing Algerian president, has tendered his resignation after weeks of protests by hundreds of thousands of people calling for an end to his rule and for broader regime change. The Financial Times reports that Bouteflika’s resignation was announced by the state news agency on Tuesday night shortly after the army piled more pressure on him by calling for the immediate start of a constitutional process to declare him unfit for office.

The Times and Reuters report on the continued fallout from Turkey’s local elections. The Times reports that President Erdogan’s Justice and Development party (AKP) has demanded partial recounts in Ankara and Istanbul after losing control of the cities to the main opposition. The AKP lost power in almost every major city in Turkey on Sunday. In Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, mayoral candidate for the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) beat the AKP’s Binali Yildirim, a former prime minister, by about 25,000 votes. Istanbul council quickly removed billboards it had pasted across the city on Sunday night which showed Mr Erdogan and Mr Yildirim, 63, alongside a slogan thanking voters for delivering an AKP victory. Reuters reports that Turkey’s High Election Board ruled on Wednesday in favour of a recount in seven of Istanbul’s 39 districts after an initial count showed the main opposition candidate earned a narrow victory in the city’s local election. Pro-government newspapers on Wednesday said there had been a conspiracy against Turkey in the local elections, with the Star newspaper likening this to an attempted military coup in 2016 and nationwide protests in 2013. “Who organised the coup at the ballot box,” the front-page headline in Star said. “They wanted to take over the national will through organised theft and cheating methods,” it added.

The Independent reports that an investigation has said that a group of American hackers who once worked for US intelligence agencies helped the United Arab Emirates spy on a BBC journalist along with a host of other prominent media figures. The American operatives worked for Project Raven, a secret Emirati program that spied on dissidents, militants and political opponents of the UAE monarchy, a Reuters investigation found. They attempted to break into the iPhones of at least 10 journalists and media executives, the report states – including a Middle East-based BBC reporter and the chairman of Al Jazeera news station. The apparent aim was a fishing exercise to find confidential information that could be used in the UAE’s ongoing dispute with their Gulf rival Qatar and to stifle dissent.

The Independent reports that, according to the UK Armed Forces Minister, the UK government does not know how many civilians have been killed in its bombing campaign against ISIS. Mark Lancaster’s comments came after the Ministry of Defence was heavily criticised for official casualty estimates that claimed only one civilian had died alongside more than 4,000 ISIS militants in RAF airstrikes across Syria and Iraq. He told the Defence Committee it was “not our position that there has only been a single civilian casualty as a result of our military action”. He added: “What we are saying is that we only have evidence of what we believe to have been a single civilian casualty,” he added. “That is a rather different position.” Lancaster said there were “challenges” verifying the true figure because of the lack of British “boots on the ground” in targeted Isis strongholds.

On the BBC, Shaimaa Khalil reports on the Iraqi city of Mosul, two years after the defeat of the Islamic State in the city. It has been almost two years, writes Khalil, since the jihadist group Islamic State was defeated in Iraq’s second city of Mosul following a battle that left thousands of civilians dead. Large parts of the city have yet to be rebuilt and residents are growing increasingly frustrated. Khalil argues that poverty, corruption, unemployment and an increasingly angry population with sectarian divisions bubbling underneath the surface all contributed to the IS takeover of Mosul five years ago. Unless those root causes are tackled, IS will remain a threat.

In the Independent, Richard Hall writes: “How a ‘smarter’ Islamic state is quietly taking over swathes of Syria after ISIS defeat”. Hall argues that as one extremist Islamic state falls, another one endures. Over the past few years, a group that was formerly part of al-Qaeda has cemented its power in northern Syria and now rules over some 3 million people. After forcing out rival rebel groups in Idlib earlier this year, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has moved to impose its control over all institutions the province. A university with more than 6,000 students has become the latest battleground in its quest for dominance. The takeover of the university is just the latest power grab in the group’s slow and steady march to dominance. Like ISIS, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham wants to create an Islamic state of its own. Where Isis aimed to expand quickly and attract the maximum possible attention, HTS has played a long game. It has been pragmatic, and worked with other groups when it needed to. But it has also been opportunistic and crushed its rivals. It has put aside global ambitions to focus on succeeding locally. In doing so, it has pursued a far more durable force than ISIS.

In the Guardian, David Wearing writes: “Britain could stop the war in Yemen in days. But it won’t”. He argues that in Yemen, Britain has helped to create the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. That is a matter of incontrovertible fact, he writes, and one of grave urgency. It is long past time for the UK to face up to its responsibilities, he argues, and to the true nature of its role in the world.

Reuters reports that US senators from both parties on Tuesday asked Energy Secretary Rick Perry for details about recent approvals for companies to share nuclear energy information with Saudi Arabia, with the lawmakers expressing concern about possible development of atomic weapons. Saudi Arabia has engaged in “many deeply troubling actions and statements that have provoked alarm in Congress,” Senators Bob Menendez, a Democrat, and Marco Rubio, a Republican, told Perry in a letter, a copy of which was seen by Reuters. The senators said Congress was beginning to reevaluate the US-Saudi relationship, and they believe Washington should not be providing nuclear technology or information to Saudi Arabia now.

Yedioth Ahronoth, Maariv and Haaretz report comments by Prime Minister Netanyahu that President Rivlin is “Looking for an excuse to let Gantz form a Government.” Hahadashot aired a recording in which Netanyahu urged his staff to get out the vote for Likud and said that a difference of two to five seats in Blue and White’s favour would serve as an excuse for Rivlin to  ask Gantz to form the next Government. The President’s office issued a sharply worded response to Netanyahu’s remarks, calling them ‘another despicable attempt to cast aspersions on the president’s judgment and the public’s confidence in his decision after the election.’

Maariv reports that a tomato was thrown at Netanyahu yesterday as he toured the Hatikvah market in Tel Aviv. Netanyahu toured the market in southern Tel Aviv. Alongside the cries of “Bibi, king of Israel,” a woman threw a tomato at the prime minister. While the tomato failed to hit Netanyahu, the incident was a rarity; the last time a tomato was thrown at a candidate running for prime minister was in 1981, when the Alignment’s candidate, Shimon Peres, was the target.

Haaretz writes about Gantz’s plan to form a government after the elections. In private conversations Gantz has said that if Blue and White receives at least four more seats than Likud, he will immediately reach out to the center-right Kulanu party, the right-wing libertarian Zehut party, and ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism. Channel Thirteen reported last night about a secret meeting between Yair Lapid and Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman in a Tel Aviv restaurant. Lieberman denied the report, saying that the meeting wasn’t a secret.

Yediot Ahronoth quotes Gantz saying: “Netanyahu has become Captain George. Because of the pressure felt by Netanyahu, who knows that I’m going to beat him, he’s clinging to the nauseating figure of a man who is all hatred and Kahanism.” Kan Radio reports that a senior Blue and White official said the deal to alternate the post of Prime Minister between Gantz and Lapid should be cancelled. He said that if they wanted to guarantee victory, Lapid had to forego the alternating premiership in order to gain another two or three seats. According to the report additional high-ranking figures in Blue and White subscribe to this position, but Lapid has refused to concede.

Israel Hayom published an article by Memi Peer that there are currently 18 seats up for grabs, thanks to undecided voters. Fifteen percent of the eligible voters have not yet decided which party to vote for. Some of them will decide as they make their way to the polling stations, while others will decide in the polling booth.

Maariv reports that Blue and White Party officials commented on Netanyahu’s gevalt campaign (campaign of woe) saying: “Netanyahu has seen the same internal polls that we’ve seen and knows that he’s going to lose. Blue and White is closer than ever to victory. Anyone who wants to have Netanyahu replaced needs Blue and White to be the biggest party, by a large margin.” Benny Gantz said last night that he would not join a government led by Netanyahu. Gantz made his comments after a poll was published last night by Channel Thirteen News that predicted Likud will win 29 seats and the Blue and White party will win 28 seats. Labour are predicted to win 14 seats.

Haaretz reports that Netanyahu will meet Russian President Putin tomorrow. Chemi Shalev believes: “The meeting…five days before the Israeli elections, can mean one of two things: Either there is an acute crisis concerning Israel’s involvement in Syria, or Netanyahu is using the Russian president as a campaign prop, with what can only be his active collaboration. Putin is pulling for Netanyahu as he did for Donald Trump, but this time it’s out in the open.

Maariv reports that Channel Thirteen News journalist Raviv Drucker revealed email correspondence that raises suspicions that former Israel Navy commander Maj. Gen. (res.) Eliezer Marom and the state’s witness in the submarines affair (Case 3,000), Mickey Ganor, the Israeli representatives of the German shipyard ThyssenKrupp, had financial interests in having the sale of the submarines to Egypt approved.

Army Radio reports that an attempted stabbing attack took place near Nablus this morning. The assailant was shot by a civilian.

Kan Radio News reports that President Reuven Rivlin’s wife Nehama’s health has suddenly deteriorated after receiving a lung transplant three weeks ago. The president cut short his visit to Canada and has departed for Israel. Upon arrival he will head directly to his wife’s side at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.