The Guardian reports that Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose ultra-nationalist Jewish Power party emerged as the second biggest group in Netanyahu’s bloc and the third largest in the country, praised the late racist rabbi Meir Kahane in a speech at the memorial in Jerusalem on Thursday. Ben-Gvir has long admired Kahane, whose violent anti-Arab ideology – including calls to ban Jewish-Arab intermarriage and for the mass expulsion of Palestinians – was considered so repugnant, Israel banned him from parliament and the United States listed his party as a terrorist group. The paper notes Kahane was assassinated by an Arab assailant in New York 32 years ago.

Sky News reports that FIFA has announced that Israeli and Palestinian fans will be able to travel to the World Cup in Qatar in a landmark agreement. Special charter flights will be laid on from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv to take the supporters to Doha. The flights, which will be mixed and will include residents of the occupied Palestinian Territories and the Gaza Strip, will be operated by an airline that has landing rights in Qatar.

The Telegraph reports Israel’s president has been caught warning that the “entire world” is “anxious” about the extreme-Right becoming part of the country’s next government. President Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, had been speaking with members of the ultra-orthodox faction Shas when his comments were picked up by a nearby microphone.

The Economist releases a podcast – Anne McElvoy asks The Economist’s Anshel Pfeffer “how the leader’s partnership with the far-right could change Israel”, and David Makovsky of the Washington Institute assesses the “implications for Israel’s relations with America and the Arab world”.

Reuters reports Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on track to regain top office after last week’s election, said he spoke on Thursday to the president of United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. “Sheikh bin Zayed invited me to visit his country so that we can together advance bilateral ties,” tweeted Netanyahu, who as prime minister in 2020 forged formal relations with Abu Dhabi.

Reuters also reports that “scientists in Israel are creating a gene bank from the seeds of local wild crops, some that have survived for thousands of years since the birth of agriculture and that may help farmers deal with a harsher climate in the coming decades”. In a eucalyptus grove nestled between an industrial zone and a new railroad under construction, botanist Alon Singer collected seeds from a number of plants recently spotted, including a variety of water mint, that will be frozen and stored at the Israel Plant Gene Bank at the Volcani Institute, the national agricultural R&D center.

The Financial Times publishes that the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which is hosting this month’s COP27 climate summit, is a favourite venue for international gatherings. “Wedged between the mountains and sea near the southern tip of Sinai with a tiny local population, it is easy to seal off and secure — a place where the country’s harsh realities can be kept at bay. But as world leaders descended on the enclave for the climate gathering this week, Egypt’s human rights record — and the plight of political dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah — has become the focus of intense attention, at times overshadowing the official business of the conference”.

The Guardian reports that three weeks after he was violently arrested at his home by Iran’s security forces, Saman Yasin, a young Kurdish artist and rapper, is facing execution. He has been charged with waging war against God after posting his support for anti-regime protesters on social media. His fate, which will be decided in the coming days by the Iranian courts, could be shared by thousands of other young protesters being held in detention as human rights organisations warn that the regime may unleash a bloody campaign of revenge to quash continuing protests.

In Haaretz, Amos Harel writes that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has “established a new council to strengthen his hold on the justice system and continues his oppressive legacy while remaining loyal to the Oslo Accords”. Two separate and seemingly unrelated steps taken recently by the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, are indicative of the increasingly authoritarian and autocratic nature of the regime in the Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank. One step has to do with the Palestinian justice system and the other with the PLO, and both show just how faithful the PA remains to the role essentially assigned to it by the Oslo Accords – maintaining a fluid and dynamic status quo to the Palestinians’ detriment while serving Israeli security interests.

Yediot Ahronot discusses a Tuesday night attack carried out near the town Al-Bukamal – an area that is part of an overland route for transporting weapons from Iran to Syria and Lebanon. According to various reports, “several convoys associated with Iran and the pro-Iranian militias have been attacked in that area, as have nearby bases”. There are two important and interesting elements to note about this incident. The first is that the Iranians, after realising Israel has shut down the air smuggling routes with its attacks on several airports in Syria, have reverted to using the overland route. If Israel did carry out this attack, it is a reflection of impressive intelligence capabilities, given the difficult weather conditions that reigned on Tuesday night. The second significant issue is the Americans’ swift disavowal. They rushed to announce that they were not responsible for the attack and effectively pinned blame for it on just one country – Israel. That decision illustrates once again just how leery the Americans are of Iranian retaliation against their bases in the area, as has happened before, even in the aftermath of Israeli attacks.

Israel Hayom, Yediot Ahronot and Haaretz report on Itamar Ben Gvir’s attendance at the memorial for Meir Kahane in Jerusalem. “I think that the main characteristic of Kahane was love. Love of Israel without compromise and without any other considerations,” he said. At the same time, Ben-Gvir said that it’s “no secret that today I am not Rabbi Kahane.” But the audience was not having it. The crowd booed as Ben-Gvir told them he does “not support the expulsion of all Arabs.” “I will not enact laws for separate beaches for Jews and Arabs,” he said. “Although, it is certain that we will act and do everything to expel terrorists from the country for the sake of the Jewish character of Israel, for the settlements and its Jewish identity.” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said of the event that “Celebrating the legacy of a terrorist organisation is abhorrent,” We urge all parties to maintain calm, exercise restraint, and refrain from actions that only serve to exacerbate tensions and that includes in Jerusalem.”

Amir Tibon in Haaretz writes that reports about the demands coming from Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox partners in the negotiations show that this coalition, the first in Israel’s history that will have a majority of religious lawmakers, “will be forced to take unpopular steps that could enrage even some secular right-wing Likud supporters”. Under these circumstances, one would expect the Lapid-led coalition to put the gloves on and start punching. There are indeed haymakers flying in the opposition bloc right now, but instead of the incoming coalition, they’re aimed at one another. Lapid, outgoing Defense Minister Benny Gantz, outgoing Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman and Labor party leader Merav Michaeli are busy blaming one another for the election results instead of focusing on how to win the next one, whenever it may be. No one is even talking about expanding cooperation with the two Arab parties in the opposition, without whom no real political alternative exists.

Yediot Ahronot reports that the justice system is tensely awaiting Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition’s announcement of a “judicial reform,” which mainly refers to passing an override clause. Retired Supreme Court justices, serving judges and senior officials in the Justice Ministry are being silent at this time. They say that “until they know the nature of the override clause that the government intends to pass, they cannot comment”. However, they predict the worst. “The Netanyahu coalition is preparing for a counterrevolution against the ‘constitutional revolution’ that was led by retired Supreme Court president Aharon Barak and the other justices in the early 1990s. Instead of ‘everything is subject to judicial review,’ from now on it will be, ‘nothing is subject to judicial review,’” they predict. The likely change relates to two issues. One is an override clause that will override procedural rulings of the High Court of Justice. This will be in the event that the High Court of Justice overturns a government decision or a decision by a state agency on the grounds that it is unreasonable. Another issue is security. If the High Court of Justice strikes down security measures on the grounds that they are disproportionate, such as deportations of terrorists or the death sentence or demolitions, the government will be able to override this.

Maariv reports that the Southern Juvenile District Court came under scathing public criticism after sentencing a young man from an unrecognized Bedouin village who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl in her home to just five years in prison. The assault, which was committed two and a half years ago, deeply shocked Negev residents, which they said illustrated the lawlessness and lack of governance in the area. The victim’s family described the sentence as a “humiliating disgrace. Discussing this in Yediot Ahronot, Sima Kadmon writes that “none of the explanations will help: not the one about a plea bargain agreement, or that this spared the girl from having to testify in court, or that the young Bedouin man had accepted responsibility”. The sentence was perceived by the public as another sign of the court’s alienation and obtuseness to the suffering of the victims and to how lightly criminals get off. “In this case it’s easy for everyone to see the horror. They can easily imagine that instead of the ten-year-old girl who was violated by a man who got into her bed at night, it was their daughter, their granddaughter, their little sister or the neighbour’s daughter. This is the kind of case that makes one’s blood boil in frustration over what is viewed as injustice. In one phrase, the punishment was not only depicted as a legal fiasco, it was also a symbol of the lack of governance, of the humiliation that the residents of southern Israel feel and not just on the personal level, but also on the national level. And if that is not a worthy reception for the new public security minister, what is?”