As heads roll in the police, eyes roll in the press

Israel’s men in blue are looking more black and blue than they have in a long time in the press Monday morning, and given the no good, very bad, horrible year the police force has been having, that’s saying something.

The failure of the police to stop a stabbing attack on the Jerusalem pride parade in July, and the punishments handed down Sunday evening — with six senior officers given the heave-ho — lead both tabloids Israel Hayom and Yedioth Ahronoth.

“The failure and the firings,” reads one headline in Israel Hayom, while another in Yedioth terms the incident a “failure parade,” riffing playfully on the death of a teen girl at the gay pride march.

The paper, which gives a full account of the list of officers kicked out and those just given reprimands, joins in on placing the blame for the attack squarely at the feet of the five-oh.

“More than a month has passed since Yishai Schlissel showed up at the Jerusalem pride parade armed with a knife and set out on his hunting spree – made possible following a series of failures on the part of the police. The police failed, Shira Banki paid with her life and yesterday came the results of the internal probe into the oh-so avoidable death,” the paper’s news story reads.

Given that fact, commentator Eli Senor writes in the paper that the punishments don’t go far enough and he doesn’t place a lot of faith in them coming to fruition.

“The results of the internal investigation committee looking into the failure that allowed the stabbing attack at the pride parade in Jerusalem prove that nothing has changed in the Israel Police. Among other things, it called for six officers to be removed from their posts, and two of the most senior officers tied to the case – Jerusalem police chief [Moshe] Edri and precinct head Effi Habibian – were given censures in their personal files. So what,” he writes. “Shira Banki paid with her life for the failures of the officers and police in Jerusalem and the national force, who didn’t know, didn’t take care of it, didn’t fulfill their duties according to instructions and didn’t and didn’t and didn’t. But in the organizational culture of the police, nobody will pay. Nobody will be told: Thanks for your service, you didn’t commit a crime – but you can no longer continue as an officer in the police. In the police you always protect your friends, and you don’t send your friends home.”

In Israel Hayom, Dan Margalit is more optimistic, though his takeaway is also that whatever is rotten in the police is not being taken out with the trash … yet. Looking at the change from the “vegetarian” first draft of the report, which was much more modest in whose heads needed to roll, to this “meatier” version, Margalit concludes that behind it lies the very reason the search for a new top cop isn’t taking place in precinct stations around the country and why nominee Gal Hirsch (remember him) needs to get the nod PDQ.

“The gap between version A and version B reinforces the idea that [Public Security Minister Gilad] Erdan cannot rely on internal investigations among the men in blue,” he writes. “The results brought forth last night strengthen the understanding that prevails in any case, that the appointment of the next police commissioner is being unduly delayed. Every day that passes where there is not a cleaning of the stables is a net loss for the public interest. The probe into Gal Hirsch’s legal dealings needs to be dealt with swiftly. Is it being delayed so that Hirsch will up and leave in disgust? There’s no way to know.”

I’m a loser, baby

Haaretz is the only paper not to lead off with the busting of the fuzz, which doesn’t even make it to the broadsheet’s front page. Instead the paper kicks things off with scuttlebutt surrounding the gas deal outline, which may or may not come to a vote in the Knesset Monday. The paper reports that it seems a Knesset vote would come down to a 56-56 tie, with several abstentions on both sides. Noting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to convince some Joint List MKs to skip the vote in exchange for money to Arab institutions failed, the paper says that he still may have some tricks up his sleeve to get coalition ministers who would rather not vote into giving a full-throated “yea.”

“Netanyahu could declare the vote on the transfer of powers a confidence motion. That would theoretically obligate all coalition members to vote for it. But it’s not certain what [ministers Moshe] Kahlon, [Yoav] Galant and [Haim] Katz would do in this scenario,” the paper reports. “Members of Netanyahu’s Likud party have also been trying to pressure Kahlon and Galant by threatening that if they don’t vote for the measure, Likud will thwart some of the flagship reforms Kulanu inserted into the Economic Arrangements Bill that accompanies the budget.”

A loss on the gas deal (and by press time it appeared he may delay the vote again after smelling defeat) would just be the latest in a string of defeats suffered by the country’s second-longest serving prime minister, from Palestinian peace talks to the Iran deal, Haaretz op-ed writer Amir Oren says.

“In his nine and a half years as prime minister, he has yet to win a single strategic victory (as opposed to a political one). Not over Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in the 1990s; not over Hamas; not over Iran. Zero successes. Nothing of what he promised materialized. He has been left with his cartoon drawing of a nuclear bomb, and the Iranians with the capability he swore they would never get,” he pens. “Politically, his balance sheet is four victories (1996, 2009, 2013, 2015) and two losses (1999, 2006). Using the accounting system he seeks to apply to the agreement with Iran – “Most of the American public opposes it” – he actually won only the first time, when there were direct elections for prime minister. All the other times, three out of four Israelis – once even nine out of 10 (in 2006) – voted against him. He became prime minister in three successive terms only thanks to the deals he concocted with other politicians.”