Down kaleidoscope

The Hebrew press is 20,000 leagues under the seethe over the prime minister’s alleged scheme to buy submarines from a German company his lawyer works for. The issue at hand is a three-boat deal struck earlier this year that was reportedly opposed by senior IDF generals and then-defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, but insisted upon by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sealed after Ya’alon was dismissed. Last week a Channel 10 report found that Netanyahu’s personal legal counsel also serves as an attorney for the German ship company involved in the deal, raising a question of possible collusion.

Yedioth Ahronoth calls for arming the torpedo bays, quoting politicians advocating launching a full investigation into Netanyahu’s suspected misdemeanor. Opposition leader Isaac Herzog and former prime minister Ehud Barak call for a probe into possible misconduct because of the “many question marks” in the matter. Acting national security adviser Yaakov Nagel admits to Channel 2 that “it could be” that former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, who opposed the submarine deal that Netanyahu pushed through nonetheless, didn’t know all the details, Haaretz reports.

Israel Hayom says the whole brouhaha in the press stinks worse than a bilge rat. Its only coverage of the issue is an op-ed piece by Mati Tuchfeld defending the prime minister and swatting away any and all claims of misconduct, claiming the whole issue is an attempt by “current members of Knesset and former ministers to try to fire torpedoes at the prime minister, in the hope of sinking him, after innumerable failed attempts to do so.”

“The question is,” writes Ido Baum in a Haaretz op-ed, “what did Netanyahu know. If he didn’t know, he acted legally. That’s the reason he published last week a clarification that he didn’t know until the Channel 10 report that Shimron represents a client connected to the submarine deal, and added that it’s forbidden for his associates to discuss their private business with him. At the same time Shimron stated that he didn’t discuss the deal with Netanyahu. But [Attorney General Avichai] Mandelblit can’t suffice with these declarations.”

He concludes that “if it turns out that the prime minister knew about Shimron’s connection to the submarine deal, it will need to be clarified whether the decision to buy them was biased.”

Yedioth Ahronoth’s Ben-Dror Yemini says something stinks about the whole affair, and it’s Shimron’s involvement. “Even if there were good reasons for supporters of buying the submarines, the mind immediately finds it hard to understand what’s going on here. It concerns the official attorney of the prime minister, who’s also his private lawyer, and also the lawyer of the Netanyahu family and also serves as the diplomatic representative of the prime minister. His hand is in everything. And Netanyahu actually didn’t know Shimron’s hand was involved in the submarine matter? Bizarre.”

Across the pond, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominations continue to make waves in Israel after. Haaretz’s front page headline reports that Trump appointed “a security adviser that publicized an anti-Semitic message and an attorney general accused of racism” — Michael Flynn and Jeff Sessions, respectively. His proposed CIA chief called for tearing up the nuclear deal with Iran, the paper notes. All in all, Haaretz isn’t enthused by the cabinet that’s forming.

Chemi Shalev is unambiguous in his concern and disgust at Trump’s appointments, saying they “dispel… the expectation that Trump will behave responsibly and with discretion with his entrance to the White House.” “Prepare the bomb shelters” is his op-ed’s headline. Trump’s appointments “don’t calm his critics, or minorities, who are worried about turning the clock back half a century.”

Yedioth Ahronoth expresses equal concern, citing Sessions’ alleged racism and sexism, Mike Pompeo’s objection to the Iran deal, and Michael Flynn’s anti-Islamic remarks.

Israel Hayom, unsurprisingly, views the appointments with more rose-tinted glasses, noting on its front page that Trump’s cabinet is “against Iran, against Islamist terror.”

In true Israel Hayom fashion, the lead article on Trump’s appointments (like Netanyahu’s submarine scandal) is an op-ed, this one penned by Boaz Bismuth. He says the appointments “change direction — and it’s a good thing.” He lays on the snark, saying President Barack Obama’s “enlightened liberal” presidency was “quiet and pleasant: states didn’t fall apart, an unprecedented migration of refugees didn’t flood Europe, and Islamic terrorism didn’t take over every continent while France turned into a war zone, and the tension between Russia and the United States didn’t break out anew.” Maybe it’s time for some change, he argues.