Thursday April 29, 1999 / Iyar 13, 5759 - Day 28 of the Omer

Meretz activists broke into the editorial offices of the religious-Zionist HaTzofeh newspaper in Tel Aviv last night, spray-painting graffiti throughout the building. The graffiti, accusing the religious-Zionist camp of instigating the murder of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, was signed "Meretz Youth." Similar slogans were written overnight on the National Religious Party campaign offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Israeli Journalists Association condemned the violence. "These acts of vandalism by Meretz sympathizers were apparently carried out in the name of the tolerance and mutual coexistence that Meretz espouses," said HaTzofeh's executive-director Natan Eshel today. "It's interesting that the left in Israel uses quite militant tactics. It's also notable that in the rest of the world, the left-wing is basically against the NATO attack in Yugoslavia, and only the Israeli left is in favor..."

When asked about what appears to be his paper's "unprofessional slant" in favor of the National Religious Party, Eshel said, "The truth is that we have had complaints from both sides - from the National Union and the NRP - and this shows that we're probably OK. We have included a column by Chanan Porat, and news items sent by Tzvi Hendel [both of the National Union], and the bottom line is that we are waiting for the time only three weeks from now when we will be able to say, 'How pleasant it is for brothers to sit together.'" Eshel is also a friend and advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and in that capacity he told Arutz-7, "I don't relate seriously to polls [showing Barak leading by several percentage points over Netanyahu], ever since I recently went to some famous pollsters to ask them to carry out a poll for me, and they asked me what results I would like to see... " Eshel said that Netanyahu is very confident at this point, "based on various predictions he has been shown. I don't think there will be a second round, because it is obvious that Mordechai will drop out at the last minute, using the 'will of [his Centrist] party' as an excuse."