Gagged and hounded

How does the Israeli press report on something it can’t report on? The matter at hand on Tuesday morning is a major development in a security investigation, but details of the case cannot be disclosed to the public. Haaretz and Yedioth Ahronoth at least inform their readers that the issue at hand is a Jewish terrorism case, but Israel Hayom says that it was a major development in “a security case investigated by Israel in recent months” without mentioning the words Jewish or terrorism once in its paltry report.

All the reports on the matter are brief and contain virtually the same information and wording: that enormous efforts have been invested in trying to crack the case and that police and Shin Bet security agency are optimistic that they’ll have enough material to press charges against the suspects. A gag order has been put on the entire affair except for the existence of the gag order, the papers report.

But for something everyone can talk about: Jewish Home MK Yinon Magal’s departure from the Knesset in the face of sexual harassment allegations, just shy of a week after the episode hit the press and after a fourth woman spoke out about his conduct to the media. Israel Hayom reports that his decision to step down and admit his actions hurt others received rare praise from fellow lawmakers. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, a Jewish Home party colleague, said Magal’s acceptance of responsibility was “an appropriate act and not common in our vicinity.”

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid chimed in, saying Magal “made the right choice.”

“The time has come to close the circus, we don’t need MKs who sexually harass or insult people with disabilities,” he said, alluding to another controversial MK, Likud’s Oren Hazan who was in the news for his remarks about a Yesh Atid member of Knesset. “We need to return honor to parliament, and we made a step in the right direction today.”

One of the women who complained about Magal, who is identified only by her initial — Aleph — tells Yedioth Ahronoth in an interview that she isn’t celebrating the Jewish Home lawmaker’s fall from grace.

“I just want to put this chapter behind me,” she tells the paper. “What happened is the closest thing to justice. I don’t find pleasure from celebrating his downfall, despite the fact that he brought this upon himself. I got what I wanted and with that I’m finished. I still don’t feel that I changed something in this country. When I heard the developments I didn’t have a feeling of satisfaction, but one of relief.”

Yossi Verter throws in his two cents in a Haaretz column, saying Magal made “the proper, appropriate and acceptable step at this time, even if it’s done belatedly.”

“The only way for Magal to halt this torrent and prevent other women from bringing their stories to light and perhaps even filing a complaint with the police is to bow his head, accept the judgment, and pay the price by leaving the Knesset and giving up his title of MK,” Verter writes.

Sima Kadmon is equally blunt in her Yedioth Ahronoth column, writing that Magal had no other choice but to resign. “To his credit it can be said that he didn’t drag it out, rather cut as quickly as possible,” she says. “He could have remained a member of Knesset, but he knew well — or if he didn’t know that there were people who made it clear to him — that his standing in the Jewish Home party was that of a dead man walking.”

She says the episode should serve as a warning for future politicians: “If you’re a young man who’s thinking of a public career, behave every day of your life as if you’ll be summoned tomorrow to appear before the Turkel Committee” of inquiry.

Dan Margalit bemoans the decline in the Knesset’s respectability from the days of yore when he was a mere pup and the body still assembled in Tel Aviv. He spits venom at the likes of Magal and Oren Hazan, who he says mark the nadir in the Knesset’s downfall. He voices support for a proposal by a law professor to allow MKs to vote out a misbehaving lawmaker.

Would something like this work? he asks. “It’s not clear. But what’s clear is that we need to deal with the problem immediately. After the storm that’s just subsided. Before the one that will come on its heels.”