A Hague on both your houses

All eyes are on Europe in Israel’s print press Sunday morning, and it’s not because of their excellent pastry selection or clean and efficient train service. Rather the decision of the International Criminal Court in The Hague to pursue a war crimes probe against Israel over its actions in Gaza, coupled with the continent’s grappling with terror and increased fears for its Jewish community garner front page real estate and the biggest headlines and pictures.

The papers all move quickly from The Hague’s weekend decision straight into Israel’s response, which you can imagine gave new meaning to the word furious.

“The court in The Hague has descended into the absurd” reads the main headline of Israel Hayom, quoting … well, it’s not clear who it is quoting, since none of the sundry officials they quote in their story, who express a wide rainbow of outrage, actually say those words.

As if public officials from Netanyahu to Tzipi Livni directing their opprobrium at the ICC were not enough, commentator Dan Margalit decides to get a few shots in as well, announcing that the Palestinians’ move at the ICC is a declaration of “diplomatic war.”

“Indeed the goal is still far off, but the clear purpose is to isolate Israel and to cause delegitimization of its existence, and at the end to warn IDF soldiers away from carrying out their duties out of fear that they will be arrested abroad,” he writes.

Netanyahu’s turn to US Secretary of State John Kerry for help leads Haaretz’s coverage, complete with Washington stepping into action. “Israeli officials said Saturday that US congressmen are already advancing an initiative that would target US funds to the Palestinian Authority,” the paper reports. “A delegation headed by Senator John McCain will visit Israel this week to discuss the developments.”

The paper’s legal analyst, Aeyal Gross, takes a step back, though, and recounts that while the ICC move is symbolically significant –showing that the world is recognizing Palestine, even if Israel and an American veto are stymieing full statehood — the court, which is also probing Brits for their actions in Iraq, Americans for Afghanistan and Russians for Georgia, has a long way to go before issuing arrest warrants.

Gross lists five considerations the court must okay before starting an actual trial, from deciding if there is a case to who has standing and so on.

“If after these considerations the court come to the conclusion that it has jurisdiction over the case, that there was no independent investigation, that there is sufficient material and, that there are no considerations that would require the termination of the procedure, it will have to check if there is a reasonable basis for the conclusion that there were transgressions,” he writes. “If there is such a basis, it will be possible to move to a real investigation. Such an investigation, it should be remembered, may be conducted both against Israelis regarding civilian casualties and the settlements, and against Palestinians responsible for attacks on Israeli civilians. Even if a claim is filed against Israelis, the trial against them could not be carried out unless they are extradited to the court — and it seems the chances of that are very small.”

Yedioth Ahronoth focuses on the growing fears of an attack on the Jewish community in Western Europe, including a rundown of tales of scared Jews from Belgium to Britain to Denmark. The paper writes that Jewish schools in Brussels and Antwerp were shut down in the wake of a “hot warning” of a planned terror attack.

In Amsterdam the Jewish Cheder school was also shuttered, though out of a more general fear. “Even if we feel like an overprotective parent, that’s our duty right now. We can’t close our eyes,” principal Rabbi Benjamin Jakobs is quoted saying.

The paper’s Ben-Dror Yemini, writing from a synagogue in southern France, describes the palpable fear spreading through the continent, which is he says is being helped along by the ICC: “When Jews need guards, when the international community points an accusatory finger at Israel, when Hamas praises that move, the Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly can smile from their graves. They have won. Terrible Europe, with and without wickedness, is doing their jobs for them.”

Assuming the country isn’t delegitimized out of existence, elections are still scheduled for March, with the parties busy gearing up their campaigns.

While most polling has focused on how parties are doing, showing a near dead heat between Likud and the Zionist Camp (nee Labor-Hatnua), Bibi-backing Israel Hayom prints up results it finds much more pleasing, notably a poll showing the 32 percent of Israelis who see Netanyahu as fitting to continue as prime minister (versus the 21% who would rather see opposition head Isaac Herzog calling the US to complain about the ICC).

The accompanying article is mostly composed of long quotes from Netanyahu’s latest Facebook post, as well as a description of the newest Likud ad, which portrays the prime minister as the adult in the kindergarten of Israeli politics, though the tabloid does include a graf on the complaints filed in the wake of the ad for its “cynical use of children.”

Playing to its base, Haaretz reports on the leadership shuffle at the top of Communist Jewish Arab party Hadash, which will be led by Ayman Oudeh, and Arab party Balad, with firebrand Hanin Zoabi placed in the second slot after Jamal Zahalka.

The paper reports that the shakeup in Hadash means that three of the party’s four Knesset members will not return to the next Knesset “either because they quit or didn’t place high enough.”

Meretz, which is the furthest left-wing of the so-called Zionist parties, can normally count on Haaretz as a safe haven away from the slings and arrows of mainstream Israeli discourse, but the party is treated to a gentle spanking on the broadsheet’s op-ed page, as writer Raviv Drucker notes that the faction is losing support because of the stodginess and “members only” attitude of its central committee.

“A peek at the Labor Party ticket shows how the Meretz slate could have looked. Merav Michaeli wanted to be in Meretz in 2009. She wasn’t assured a slot so she went over to Labor,” he writes. “Zouheir Bahloul, Yariv Oppenheimer, Stav Shaffir and many other Labor candidates are in fact potential Meretz candidates. Some even considered this possibility until it was explained to them that the Labor primary, with all its drawbacks, would be a walk in the park compared to the chance of winning at the Meretz Central Committee.”