Netanya and Netanyahu

Criminal investigations into politicians and the ongoing battle over the Sabbath are the focus of the Hebrew papers on Friday morning, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the mayor of Netanya are both under the microscope. Do you have any promising leads? the papers ask.

The tabloids lead with the arrest of Netanya Mayor Miriam Feirberg on suspicion of bribery, and the judge’s rejection of her request to be released to house arrest pending proceedings. Feirberg dismissed all the claims against her as falsehoods, and Israel Hayom highlights her comment to investigators: “Accusing me of bribery? Are you crazy?”

Yedioth Ahronoth quotes the mayor saying that she just signed off on the development projects. “I didn’t receive any favors and I didn’t give any favors,” she is quoted saying.

Residents of the building project under suspicion who spoke to Yedioth Ahronoth care not a whit about the criminal investigation. “The important thing is that we move into the apartment already,” one future resident says. “It will only upgrade our luxury building a bit more if Miriam ends up moving in there.” Netanya market-goers also express support for the embattled mayor, with one person saying that she’s done more for the coastal town than most of her predecessors have or successors will.

The ongoing non-investigation into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, captures the big headlines in Haaretz, which calls the case the first test of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit in dealing with corruption in the highest halls of government. Senior police officials say Mandelblit is holding investigators back, though. The paper reports that investigators have taken testimony from almost 20 witnesses and in at least two countries overseas. The paper says that just one of the possible leads remains open for investigation and if it yields substantive suspicions, could lead a full-blown criminal investigation into the prime minister.

Not surprisingly, Israel Hayom doesn’t have anything on the investigation into Netanyahu, only a brief article on Page 15 citing television reports that questioning of the prime minister’s former chief of staff Ari Harow yielded no evidence to support criminal suspicions against Netanyahu.

The obvious wordplay connecting Netanya and Netanyahu is the making of Haaretz’s editorial on Friday morning. The paper bemoans the fact that while police investigators are going full steam against Feirberg, they’re hobbled in probing suspicions against Netanyahu. “The police know who is responsible for this – Avichai Mandelblit, Maj. Gen. in reserves, formerly the secretary of Netanyahu’s cabinet and now attorney general for the past eight months,” it says. “Mandelblit’s current employer is the state and he is supposed to fear the law, not the Netanyahus. If a thorough investigation isn’t conducted, we’ll never know what could have been discovered.”

The Sabbath wars die down to a dull roar as railway construction on Saturday is set to go ahead as planned, thanks to Labor and Welfare Minister Haim Katz’s decision to give it the green light in spite of ultra-Orthodox opposition. The Haredi party leaders say in a joint statement that they’re engaging in “full cooperation to see to protecting the observance of the Sabbath and its holiness,” Israel Hayom reports. Although work will continue unchecked on Saturday, they plan to demand a full report Sunday about construction carried out on the day of rest and will not let unnecessary work take place on the Sabbath without oversight.

Yedioth Ahronoth, meanwhile, runs a lengthy interview with Haim Katz, the first since the outbreak of the crisis over work on the Sabbath. “Construction work on the train will renew this coming Sabbath,” he says. “Every instance will be examined on its own merits. All security work that needs to be carried out on Shabbat will be done, and just so all other work that there’s no other choice but to do on Shabbat. The sanctity of the Sabbath will also be preserved, but as far as I’m concerned it will be done quietly, without shouting, and where work doesn’t need to be done, there won’t be work. For years work has been carried out on the Sabbath, and will be done in the future. This was simply too much of a brouhaha.”

Katz says he’s certain another argument over Sabbath train work won’t happen.

On the issue of construction, after this week’s deadly building accident in Tel Aviv that’s already claimed several lives, Haaretz reports that construction accidents in Israel have left 30,000 workers injured in the past five years. It notes that the figures only reflect those reported to the National Insurance Institute, and don’t take into account those who don’t report their injuries. While the accident in Tel Aviv’s Ramat Hahayal neighborhood left 23 injured and at least four dead, the paper says that a comparable number are injured daily on construction sites in Israel.