With official silence still emanating out of the Yisrael Beytenu party, the rumor mill continues to grind out explanations as to why the popular Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, was removed from his party’s list ahead of the upcoming elections.

According to Friday’s Makor Rishon the reason has to do with a combination of Ayalon’s media savvy, constant interaction with the news media and not always following the party line, or more specifically Liberman’s exact instructions.

Makor Rishon reports that insiders say that there was tension between the two since the beginning of their term together, in part because Ayalon was popular among the foreign press due to his excellent English and personal interaction with them, and in part because of Ayalon’s philosophy that the Foreign Ministry needs to interact a lot with the media in order to get their message across, while Liberman prefers to play his cards close to his chest.

Ayalon is considered one of the cutting edge politicians when it comes to using social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter.

Channel 10 had reported that Ayalon was dropped for leaking information to the press, Makor Rishon seems to confirm that this is what Liberman believed, and that over the past four years, Liberman not only excluded Ayalon from meetings, but also embedded one of his personal spokespersons into Ayalon’s office whom Ayalon believed was there to report on him back to Liberman.

Sources in Yisrael Beytenu said that Ayalon knew for two days that he was probably going to be kicked out, and could have quit on his own respectfully.

Ayalon office says he was only officially informed two hours before the announcement.

Employees of Haaretz have gone on an open-ended strike, while Maariv employees are burning tires outside their office building, due to the anticipated firing of nearly 2000 people in Maariv, as well as anticipated staff staff cutbacks at Haaretz.

This comes in addition, according to a report on Galei Tzahal, of staff firings that have already begun in the recent days at Globes, Yediot, and others.

The strike was timed to coincide with a special Directors meeting at Haaretz.

Some of the striking newspaper staff are demanding that the government bail out the newspapers, because of their “important role in safeguarding Israeli democracy.”

In addition, there are new difficulties in the Makor Rishon acquisition of Maariv.  Maariv may be in more debt than previously disclosed, and it’s sales projections are less than were previously estimated placing the deal in a precarious position. Shlomo Ben-Zvi is reportedly working on renegotiating the deal.

FYI, you will still be able to get your news today from JewishPress.com.

As JewishPress.com first reported last Thursday, Shlomo Ben-Zvi, the publisher of the national-religious paper Makor Rishon announced the purchase of the struggling Maariv newspaper on Friday. Maariv is the 3rd largest paper in Israel. It was owned by Nochi Dankner and IDB, and had recently announced it would be going completely digital, except for the weekend editions.

The sale was for NIS 85 million shekels.

Ben-Zvi plans to retain only up 15% of the current Maariv staff, mostly editorial personnel.

Makor Rishon does not own a printing press and outsources its printing, and perhaps surprisingly, Ben-Zvi did not purchase Maariv’s printing press. Leaving open the possibility that Yisrael Hayom may still eventually purchase it.

Ben-Zvi lives in Efrat.

Globes is reporting that Shlomo Ben-Zvi, one of the owners of the religious Israeli newspaper, Makor Rishon, is in advanced talks with Maariv owner Nochi Dankner to buy the Maariv newspaper.

The report said that Ben-Zvi doesn’t plan to buy the debt of the paper, just the assets, including the Maariv brand name and control.

The deal is estimated in the tens of millions of shekels.

Back in December, Tunisia-born Vice Prime Minister of Israel Silvan Shalom called on the Jews still living in Tunisia to immigrate to Israel. That call was rejected with much derision by the remnants of Tunisia’s once thriving Jewish community.

But with new legislation being proposed in the Islamist Ennahda led government, Tunisian Jews may need to rethink their loyalty to a country that no longer wants them.

The Tunisian Parliament is working to pass a law that will prohibit the import of religious books, kosher food, and even visitors from Israel.

The Jews of Tunisia are working to reach a compromise with the government to prevent the parliament from passing the law in a few months time.

In an interview with Makor Rishon, Rav Haim Biton, Chief Rabbi of the Jewish community in Tunisia said, “Today, the government lets us bring in food, medicine, religious and educational books from Israel. If this law passes, our condition will completely change.”

He continued on to say that they are trying to explain to the government that if the law passes, in a few months from now, their relatives from Israel won’t be able to visit, they will not have much needed kosher food items, and, of course, they won’t be able to bring in religious and educational materials.

Other community members were less optimistic as they believe this is the government trying to cut off Jews from their culture. “Behind this law to prohibit the import of kosher products and visiting relatives is their desire to cut off our connection to Israel,” they said.

In November, Tunisia passed a separate law limiting NGOs to importing medicine only from foreign sources in with diplomatic ties with Tunisia, which, obviously, excluded Israel.

Despite the fact that the new proposed law hasn’t yet been passed, Israeli citizens who have requested permission to visit Tunisia recently have been repeatedly turned down, while eight months ago, they could visit.

Tunisia’s Jewish community is divided over the best way to fight the proposed legislation: quietly and behind the scenes, or with public petitions.

The opposition to the petition proposal sees no chance the law will pass, with less than two months before the end of the term of the interim government. They prefer to keep a low profile and to avoid conflicts with the new government.

Tunisia is set to hold elections on October 23rd, assuming they don’t delay them again as they did in July. If this law passes, it will be a clear failure of Tunisia’s fledgling democracy and its ability to protect the basic rights of its minority citizens.

At its peak Tunisia had 110,000 Jews. Fewer than 2000 Jews remain today in one of the Diaspora’s oldest Jewish communities, which some sources say was first settled by Jews around the time the First Temple was destroyed.

Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Levites living in Djerba, Tunisia, didn’t listen to Ezra the Scribe’s call to return to Israel. Maybe this time Tunisia’s Jews should listen to Silvan Shalom.

According to the Israeli financial website Globes, Sheldon Adelson is in advanced negotiations to purchase the Ha’aretz printing plant. The deal is believed to be in the order of $25 million dollars.

Over the past few months, Adelson’s free daily, Yisrael Hayom, has been searching for a new printing facility to replace the Ha’aretz plant where it currently prints its daily freesheet. Ha’aretz’s plant handles the printing for a number of different newspapers.

Adelson had recently been in negotiations with Nochi Dankner, a major shareholder and chairman of publicly traded IDB Group, Israel’s largest diversified business group with assets of more than $30 billion, to purchase Ma’ariv’s Levin Epstein Printing House. But that deal apparently fell through, striking a hard blow for Ma’ariv which is desperately strapped for cash. Ma’ariv has been looking to sell the printing plant and the land it sits on.

Many Israeli newspapers have been firing staff and “streamlining” these past few months. The right-wing Makor Rishon is one notable exception to the rule.

Globes reports that Ha’aretz announced it was firing 70 employees, some 32 from their own paper, and the rest from their financial daily, The Marker. Yediot Achronot will be firing dozens, many of them likely to be dropped from its website Ynet. Ma’ariv recently shut down its weekday print run, and fired 30 employees in June.

Yediot executives are blaming Adelson and Yisrael Hayom for destroying the Israeli newspaper industry, and more specifically, for destroying Ha’aretz and Yediot Achronot with the introduction of the free daily broadsheet.

According to a poll commissioned by Makor Rishon, the majority of Israelis want Jews to be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount.

Of the 512 Jewish Israeli adults who responded to the poll, 52% were for permitting Jewish Prayers on the Temple Mount, while 37% were against it.

22% of those polled said they are fasting on Tisha B’Av, the holiday that commemorates the destruction of the Temple.

The final question in the poll was, “Do we need to now begin rebuilding the Temple?”

The response to that question was more disappointing.

Unfortunately, 61% of all those polled said no.

Among those who designated themselves as Chardali (Chareidi National-Religious) or Ultra-Orthodox 71% said yes.

While most disappointingly, among those who designated themselves as National-Religious only 43% said yes. Among Traditional, 43% said yes, and among the Secular 9% said yes.

Do we need to begin rebuilding the Temple?

Overall: No: 61%,  Yes:17%

Should Jews be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount?

Overall: No: 37%,  Yes: 52% 

What do you feel toward Tisha B’Av?

Overall: Nothing: 51%, Connected/not fasting: 22%, Fasting: 22% 

Hundreds of Israelis from across Israel gathered in Hebron last Thursday to participate in the Conference for the Application of Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, and to hear a growing cadre of politicians, experts, and opinion-makers discuss their perspective on how to realize this goal.

The Conference, the second of its kind organized by Women in Green, saw a speaker list that appears to reflect a sense that annexation of Judea and Samaria is an increasingly viable option. Beyond the attendance of the expected nationalist politicians – like government minister and Chairman of Habayit Hayehudi Rabbi Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz, National Union MK Uri Ariel, and Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely – also appearing were Caroline Glick, a senior editor at the Jerusalem Post; Yoram Ettinger, former Israeli ambassador to Washington; and Eran Bar-Tal, the economic editor of the Makor Rishon newspaper, among many others.

Long dismissed as a revisionist fantasy of the extreme nationalist camp, the idea of annexation is gaining traction in mainstream society, as more and more Israelis question the wisdom and validity of the ‘two state solution’ paradigm. The commission and release of the Levy Report appears to be one such manifestation of this shift.

At the Conference, which was held in the hall adjoining the Machpelah Cave, each speaker offered their own perspectives on annexation. Minister Hershkovitz insisted on the application of Israeli sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria and not only over the communities of Area C. In what appeared to be a jab at the annexation plan put forward by Naftali Bennett – who is running against Hershkowitz for chairmanship of Habayit Hayehudi – Hershkowitz said that the application of sovereignty over anything less than all of Judea and Samaria will be interpreted by the other side as an admission of surrender over certain parts of the area. Glick agreed with Hershkowitz, saying that “the cost will be the same cost, so it would be a shame to pay it for half the job….”

Bar-Tal, speaking from an economic perspective, dismissed the scare tactics of the left regarding the economic repercussions of annexation, and stated that in fact annexation would strengthen Israel’s economy.

Yitzhak Bam of the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel analyzed the legal reality in Judea and Samaria, and – in concurrence with the Levy Report – stated that the issue of the application of sovereignty is not a legal question, but purely political, since there is no other sovereign authority that demands the return of the territory to it, and, in practice, there is a sort of “sovereignty vacuum” in Judea and Samaria.

But perhaps most stirring was the video message by Israel Prize laureate and former MK Geulah Cohen, who told of her parliamentary struggle to annex east Jerusalem, which began as a private initiative, and -after her tireless efforts- was finally passed by the Knesset on July 30, 1980.

Nadia Matar, who along with Yehudit Katsover organized the Conference, said: “We were greatly inspired by Geula. She talked about the denunciations she endured during that process. At the time people mocked her, just like they’re mocking us now.

“‘The sky didn’t fall’ when the law was passed,’ ” Matar recounted Cohen saying, “despite the propaganda employed by those opposed to the annexation.”

Cohen related how Teddy Kollek, then-mayor of Jerusalem, warned her that there would be an avalanche of international condemnation and isolation. Yes, foreign governments moved their embassies out of Jerusalem, she said, but if that’s the cost of asserting sovereignty over the Land of Israel, its a worthwhile cost.

Katsover and Matar said that that they plan on capitalizing on the momentum by enlisting more public figures and citizens to bear on the Knesset to advance the law for sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.

“Just like we now express surprise that Israel did not have sovereignty over east jerusalem and the Golan Heights, so our children will express surprise that once we did not have sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,” Matar said.