Fighting fire with fire

After a lengthy battle, firefighters succeed Friday in extinguishing the last embers of destructive brush fires caused by Lag B’Omer pyres lit a day earlier.

Coming into the new week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had hoped to have doused his own political fires, still raging since his decision nearly two weeks ago to bring Avidgor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party into the coalition. But a threat by the Jewish Home party to vote against Liberman’s appointment as defense minister left Netanyahu scrambling to fight what could have erupted into a full-blown blaze.

In a late Sunday night turnaround, Netanyahu decided to accept a compromise deal on the Jewish Home demand to change the way members of the security cabinet are briefed, paving the way for the new government ministers to be sworn in Tuesday, but not without raising many questions.

Fortunately for Netanyahu, those questions, asked in some of Monday’s Hebrew papers, are pushed off the top spot of the front pages by another more sensational story. Unfortunately for the prime minister, that story is of another fire he has failed to put out, despite his best efforts, involving accusations of financial misconduct by his wife Sara Netanyahu.

Yedioth Aharonoth leads with the police recommendation that Sara Netanyahu go on trial over misuse of public funds earmarked for the Prime Minister’s Residence.

“She received [the money] fraudulently,” reads the stark headline on the front page next to a solemn-looking photo of Sara Netanyahu.

In two cutting analyses, Yedioth correspondents slam the Netanyahus for not just the accusations but also their handling of the case.

Sima Kadmon, in a piece titled “The state is my wife,” writes that the Netanyahus have spent the last two decades covering up misdeeds from the public.

“Corrupt meals on the public bill? Don’t make us laugh. Expenses for a career for [Sara Netanyahu’s] sick father on the state account? Not us!,” goads Kadmon, mocking the responses of the Netanyahus. “The recommendation of the police in the case of Sara Netanyahu is a direct continuation of a complete world that has been revealed to us since the beginning of the the couple’s political prominence 20 years ago. A world in which the state does not have a leader, but the leader has a state.”

Nahum Barnea, the paper’s chief diplomatic correspondent, writes that just like in other countries, “the longer Netanyahu has remained prime minister, the more power he has acquired, and as he has gained power, he has lost control.”

Haaretz puts specific emphasis on the police announcement that the investigation had been completed and that the information would not be passed to the state prosecutor, noting the unusually sparse information included within it.

“The police statement was unusual in that usually such statements note whether the findings are based on a suspicion that criminal offenses were committed or, alternatively, that police are recommending that indictments be filed. In the current case, the names of the three individuals who were investigated were not even mentioned,” the paper reports.

Haaretz contributor Gidi Weitz goes further, accusing the police chief of being involved in a cover-up to hide information from the public.

“Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich’s decision to hide the police investigation team’s recommendation that the prime minister’s wife, Sara Netanyahu, should face criminal charges over the handling of expenses at the Netanyahu family’s residence is additional evidence that the commissioner is one of the worst and least principled in the history of the police force,” he writes.

“Contrary to normal procedure, the police statement announcing the conclusion of the investigation against Sara Netanyahu was not coordinated with Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan. One can also assume that the two would also not understand how a police chief could obscure the fact that there was a basis to put her on trial with one hand while secretly passing along a recommendation to do so with the other; as if it were some kind of confidential piece of intelligence on a ticking bomb from a source who needed immediate protection.”

Even Israel Hayom, often accused of being grossly pro-Netanyahu, said the the police statement was “unusually vague and cryptic, as it did not indicate whether a recommendation to indict would be made.”

The paper however, as opposed to the other major publications leads its front page (and the next three) with the deal with the Jewish Home party, which it describes as an “important compromise.”

“After several suspenseful days during which the future of the coalition hung in the balance, the crisis between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett over the security cabinet has ended. The debate was solved when Netanyahu accepted the compromise deal crafted by Health Minister Yakov Litzman by which the head or deputy head of the National Security Council will temporarily serve in the role of military secretary to the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet, until a committee that Netanyahu announced late last week provides long term solutions,” the paper reports, apparently giving Netanyahu the credit for ending the deadlock.

Haaretz correspondent Tal Niv links the two lead stories together, accusing Netanyahu of causing irreparable damage by his constant efforts to put out fires and keep himself in power.

“This is a country whose parliamentary rule is incapable of welding its political parties together. It is headed by a dictator and is in the midst of shattering into tiny fragments. Neither right nor left, but rather an irrevocable disintegration,” she writes.