‘Harsh failures’

The shocking murder of two young sisters from a Bedouin village near Arad — and the more-shocking revelation that the police were warned the father might try to hurt them, but did nothing — gets wide coverage in Friday’s Hebrew press.

Haaretz goes for dramatic effect with a tabloid-style top half of its front page, covering much of A1 with a recent picture of the two girls playing (the same photo that also graces every other paper) and the 1-word headline: “Invisible.”

The story reports that the two top commanders in the Arad police station, as well as a top investigator, were booted for their “harsh failures” and posits that many questions remain unanswered, opening with a damning quote from the mourning mother “choking back tears.” “In the last few years I turned several times to the police in Ma’aleh Adumim, but when they saw that I am Palestinian and don’t have Israeli ID, they would tell me that they are not the pertinent people to tell. ‘Go to the coordination or connection office.’ What coordination… what connection?, I asked them. But they never dealt with it.”

Yedioth Ahronoth quotes police chief Yohanan Danino saying that what happened in Arad was “an extreme outlier and did not hold up to the high professional standards expected of Israeli cops and officers.” However, the paper questions how much of an outlier it was, reporting that a few months ago a resident called to report a break-in, but police refused to respond, saying they had more important things to deal with (namely, a visit by Danino that day).

The paper also spoke to the mother, who says that she doesn’t blame the girls’ father, thought to be behind the murders, but rather the police. “I won’t forgive the police. This happened because of them. They could have prevented this.”

Maariv leads off with diplomatic news following US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit here, specifically that Kerry asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to officially freeze settlement building as a way of getting the Palestinians back to the table. Unfortunately (for Kerry), the story notes that neither side is likely to sign on to the novel idea. “A senior official in Jerusalem noted that Netanyahu will be hard-pressed to sign such an agreement, which would be politically dangerous given his coalition makeup. The estimation is that [Abbas] will also refuse.”

Israel Hayom focuses on full coverage of the planned Haredi draft  plan submitted by the Peri Committee on Thursday, running through the numbers, the political implications, and the opposition within the ultra-Orthodox community and elsewhere, including the Channel 2 report that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein is pressing politicians to wait on holding a vote over the matter. The paper’s Dan Margalit writes that the plan, which would see Haredim drafted at 21 and army service for everybody shortened, is headed in the right direction, with a few caveats, including this one: “The attempt to include in the report the shortening of service for regular soldiers comes off like election bribery. If the army can shorten service given the threats in the region, the thing should be done without any connection to the Haredim.”

Booking the face of Facebook

United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni may be against the Haredi draft, but he is all for drafting another Jew into speaking at the Knesset: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Yedioth reports that Gafni invited him to take part in a Knesset discussion on privacy concerns around Facebook, after somebody opened a fake page under Gafni’s name and the site took its time to take it down. “The fact that it can take days from the time of reporting such a thing until the page is removed can possibly cause serious damage,” says the letter, which is included in the story. “As a company that is one of the founders of the biggest social media sites in the world, it would only be fitting and proper that its founder would take part in such an important and critical discussion.”

Speaking of privacy concerns, Israel Hayom slams Yedioth for daring to publish an aerial picture of Netanyahu’s private family residence, which, it says, was political incitement on the part of editor Moni Mozes.

“The picture … was meant to show Netanyahu as rich, corrupt, and out of touch with the masses whom he is forcing under the terrible cuts. And the terrible waste — a quarter-million shekels a year. We didn’t hear Yedioth whining about the expenses of past prime ministers, and not of the expenses of other public figures. Millions are spent securing Sharon’s ranch and his house in the Old City. Shimon Peres raised the costs of the President’s Residence by tens of millions, and not a word was said in the media. And what about others? How much do they cost us? Who cares.”

Haaretz’s Nehemia Shtrasler turns his sights inward and aims his pen at journalists in Israel, whom he says have helped push the country into its current economic morass. “We’re talking about journalists who always say what the public wants to hear. When the public demanded bigger expenses, to engender a social protest and to raise salaries of certain groups, they were for it. But now, when the public is angry over the irresponsibility that led to the economic crisis, to the fall in the credit rating and to the need for cuts and tax hikes, they changed their direction and started to voice harsh criticism on others. Again they are saying what the public wants to hear.”