It’s Kahlon’s world, and Bibi just lives in it

The days of campaigning have been and gone, and after a night of celebration and consolation, Israelis rise to the dawn of what’s to come: coalition building. Trouble is, much of the print media closed its pages after the Tuesday night exit polls had predicted a narrow victory for the prime minister, but before the real count had shown him a decisive winner — thus rendering lots of coverage rather skewed, if not redundant.

Israel Hayom, unsurprisingly, was upbeat whatever its closing hour. “A victory for Netanyahu;” Israel Hayom’s headline reads, continuing, “Calls to Kahlon to join him.”

The rest of the daily’s special 96-page election results edition’s cover is decorated with a graph of a correct-up-to-printing results and commentary, all praising Netanyahu’s win except one that for whatever reason discusses voter turnout in the ultra-Orthodox community, which really doesn’t seem like a front-page issue, all things considered.

But the rest glow with pride for the current, and likely future, prime minister.

“Netanyahu couldn’t have anticipated a sweeter victory,” Mati Tuchfeld writes.

Haim Shine calls Netanyahu’s campaign “A victory over a coalition of unprecedented special interests.”

“From my viewpoint,” Shine writes, “Israel, which was in danger, was saved from all those who came up to divide her.”

As the number of votes is finalized and the coalition building begins, he writes, “we have to hope that the left, too, will accept the results of the democratic elections and won’t continue the journey of hatred and demonization.”

Itzik Saban says, “The public identified Noni Mozes’s lies — and threw them in the trash,” referring to Yedioth’s publisher.

I guess kicking a man when he’s down never goes out of style.

Dror Eydar and Boaz Bismuth both blast “the media” (What, pray tell, do they consider Israel Hayom?) and the “superiority of the left.”

One lone voice, Dan Margalit, gives a half-hearted attempt at bipartisanship. “It’s not true that a national unity government is paralysis,” he offers. But his double-negative of an idea lacks any real punch.

“When Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir led [a national unity government],” Margalit writes, “they were able to get Israel out of a tough and runaway inflation.”

But in the end, he adds, the decision is in the hands of President Reuven Rivlin, who’s known as a “vigorous man of the public.”

Haaretz, as can be expected, takes a more somber approach to the election results.

Their front page has no big headlines, no exclamation points. The two relatively small side-by-side pictures on the cover don’t show rallies, confetti and speeches. On the right (obviously), Netanyahu emerges from behind curtains, looking stoic with his victory speech in hand. On the left, Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni sit nervously on a couch with a handful of supporters behind them.

Haaretz’s Ari Shavit laments, “This time there really was a chance. This time there was also hope. Benjamin Netanyahu was weak, Likud was crumbling, the right, the right was caught in distress completely.”

But, Shavit notes, the “white tribe” — the Ashkenazi elite — is the most politically backward group in Israel. They get stuck in unbelievably mistaken conversations, “and that is what happened yesterday.

Chemi Shalev criticizes Netanyahu’s “statements that were tainted by racism, which up to this point have only been on the right-most fringes.”

These statements, Shalev writes, burned any bridge the prime minister had with the Arab community when he warned the country to get out and vote as “Arab voters are coming in droves to the ballot boxes.”

But Yossi Verter sees this election as belonging not to Benjamin Netanyahu, but rather to the new Kulanu party leader Moshe Kahlon.

“Netanyahu may remain the Caesar from Caesarea, but Kahlon is the king of the hill,” Verter writes, playing with the meaning of Kahlon’s hometown of Givat Olga, which literally translates to “Olga’s Hill.”

In his article, “The prime minister of U-S A-L-L” (the literal translation of Kahlon’s party’s name), Verter claims the Kulanu party head may decide not just the prime minister, but also the makeup of the coalition.

While it seems most likely that Benjamin Netanyahu will again be the prime minister and that Herzog has no chance to do so alone, he writes, “But there is one script, almost impossible, but fascinating, where Herzog could be prime minister: If he offers to Kahlon, besides the Finance Ministry, also a rotation as prime minister, and to Liberman the Defense Ministry, let’s say.”

Even with that, he says, it would be only just barely be possible to get the 61 seats necessary to form a government. But, enjoyable as the thought experiment is to him, Verter admits that it would have yet another hurdle to clear: President Rivlin’s reported calls for a national unity government (which Rivlin’s office has denied).

Yedioth Ahronoth agrees. “The achievement to Herzog, the victory to Netanyahu,” the paper’s headline reads, but “Kahlon will steer.”

Yedioth, which features the least flattering picture possible of Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu, calls the election a “tight race.” No matter that every other outlet called the election a resounding victory for the prime minister — even Haaretz. It’s no “Dewey defeats Truman,” but it’s close.

In Nahum Barnea’s article, “Bibi boom,” he applauds the election process. “That is what’s beautiful with democratic elections. You can love the outcomes more or less, with dancing the Hora or with a head hung low, but you can’t refuse them,” he writes.

Barnea predicts, “Even if the outcomes change here and there through the night, Netanyahu will be the next prime minister.”

While he does not yet have the majority, he explains, “he has the momentum.”

Barnea also sees Kahlon as a, if not the, deciding factor. “Kahlon will concentrate, presumably, on his list of demands from Netanyahu, beginning with housing and continuing to the banks. He can demand to have subject to his authority all economic and societal decisions.”

Yuval Karni also sees Kahlon as the pivotal player in the coalition game. Karni’s article, “The key man,” features an infographic showing the makeup of the three most likely governments: Right, national unity and left-center-Haredi.

Karni does not add much to the conversation about Kahlon, only repeating what everyone is saying, that he will ultimately determine the premiership and coalition.

In a second article, Karni calls the Likud victory “Netanyahu’s comeback.” As Bibi will likely be going from being prime minister to being prime minister, this headline slightly exaggerates his position. “Dodged a bullet,” maybe, but to quote LL Cool J, “Don’t call it a comeback.”

Rotem Elizera and Lior El-Hai appreciate the irony of January’s vicious battle between Tzipi Hotovely and Avi Dichter over the 20th and 26th spots on Likud’s list, following a contentious primary election, considering both will now enter Knesset.

Yedioth Ahronoth also offers its readers a two-page spread, showing every candidate expected to enter the 20th Knesset.

But as Verter writes, while dramatic changes are not necessarily likely to happen, they certainly still could. We must wait not “as the say in the opera, ‘until the fat lady sings,'” he says, but rather “we should wait until the skinny lady, Orli Adas, director general of the Central Election Committee and Chairman of the committee, Judge Joubran, say their piece.”

All the news that is news that’s not election news

While the Israeli national election dominates Wednesday’s newspapers, some other topics did manage to sneak into the day’s editions.

Haaretz reports nuclear talks with Iran continue in Lausanne, Switzerland, and even approach some resolution. “We’ve agreed on 90 percent of the technical subjects that were in dispute,” Head of Iran’s nuclear agency Ali Akbar Salehi says, “Now we just have one more very important issue that we have yet to solve.”

The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, recommends to his colleagues, “After more than 10 years of negotiations, we should seize this opportunity.”

Sadly, a family of 11 trying to take advantage of their election day with a boat ride off the coast of Jaffa was struck by tragedy. The family’s boat flipped in the water, for still unclear reasons, Israel Hayom reports. In the accident a 50-year-old woman died and a 5-year-old girl was seriously injured and continues to fight for her life.

Uri Shertzky, a Magen David Adom medic, explains that when they found the unconscious 50-year-old and injured child, “We immediately began performing advanced CPR techniques.”

But, Israel Hayom says, their efforts were in vain and doctors in Wolfson Hospital declared the woman dead.

In lighter news, Yedioth Ahronoth reports the results of a different election. The newspaper reports, the Ramat Gan Safari has a new leader, or new leaders: the penguins Suki, 5 and a half, and Chopchikoni, 6, will lead the zoo. Yossi the elephant and Shaul the Komodo dragon will have to settle for second and third place, respectively.

Personally I was rooting for Denisa the giraffe, but I guess we’ll have to wait for the as-yet-unformed government to collapse before she will get another chance.