Of moguls and missions

The transfer of power in the US still a fresh memory, the Israeli press on Monday sees another possible transfer in the near future — or at least charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that could lead to him being forced out of office.

As if that weren’t bad enough for Netanyahu (to say nothing of the timing — when he finally has a friend in the White House, as evidenced by another top story in the morning press’s agenda), fissures between him and alleged former cigar supplier Arnon Milchan blow wide open, with the media there to document every gory detail it can get its hands on.

Nowhere is that more true than Yedioth Ahronoth, which is happy to see Netanyahu’s gifts case take center stage after weeks in which secret and possibly illegal talks between the paper’s publisher and the prime minister dominated the press and left egg on the tabloid’s front page.

Unleashed to go after Netanyahu without dragging Arnon Mozes into it, the paper sets up the battle front and center, with a large headline on page 2 screaming “After the gifts, the mudslinging.”

The paper reports that the proxy war between the two is an “open battle,” with “Milchan likely to turn into a central witness for the state, according to reports.”

Haaretz focuses not on the cat-fighting but on the signs that an indictment is expected to come soon, citing a senior justice official saying that “some of the suspicions in the gifts case have been found to have evidentiary basis.”

Cigarfuffle aside, the paper’s Ido Baum sees the Milchan case as presenting a catch-22 for Netanyahu, who has defended the gifts he received from the Hollywood producer, and partial owner of Channel 10, as presents from a good friend.

“If Milchan was a close friend of Netanyahu, the prime minister should have disclosed that when he was made communications minister – just as he declared his ties with Shaul Elovitz, and thus was prevented from dealing with anything having to do with [telecommunications firm] Bezeq,” he writes. “Netanyahu’s dealings with Milchan and Channel 10 raise suspicions of breach of trust – the same offense that Ehud Olmert was charged with when he broke the rules as industry and labor minister.”

Even Israel Hayom puts the reports that an indictment may be headed Netanyahu’s way on its front page, but it takes up only a sliver below a massive (and ugly) headline declaring that Netanyahu has been invited by US President Donald Trump to visit the White House. All that’s missing from the stew of bullet points on their first magical phone call that take up much of the front page are the words “oh frabjous day.”

Reporting on the White House statement on moving the embassy, the paper takes the view, adopted by much of the Israeli press, that the statement is a show of support for moving the embassy, and not, as some others saw it, as meant to dampen excitement that the move was in the offing soon.

“Sources close to the president noted to Israel Hayom yesterday that the president doesn’t break promises, and so the statement from the White House on moving the embassy to Jerusalem should be taken very seriously,” the paper reports, next to a picture of its front page from last week which crowed about Trump telling the paper that he remembers his promise about Jerusalem. Taken together, one gets the sense that the Sheldon Adelson-owned free daily will have a leg up on access to the Trump White House.

Yedioth Ahronoth takes the Spicer statement even further, reporting that the State Department has even dispatched an architect to Jerusalem to start laying the groundwork. The unsourced assertion is highly dubious given the fact that the State Department is still under the control of Thomas Shannon – who was former secretary of state John Kerry’s No. 2 and unlikely to support such a drastic move.

Nonetheless, the paper, still without sourcing, lays out the various options for moving the embassy being bruited about.

“Among the option being considered: The American ambassador will live and work in Jerusalem at the consulate; the consulate in Jerusalem will be made a branch of the embassy in Tel Aviv; the embassy will move to one of the consulate buildings in Jerusalem or a piece of land owned by the US in Jerusalem,” the paper reports. An accompanying map places that piece of land on Hebron Road in southern Jerusalem, in an area already heavily populated by shops and apartment buildings, though the graphic designers likely meant to move the dot a few kilometers further north to an area known as the former Allenby Barracks, where the US has actually purchased land for a possible future mission.

Of course one could just say that all these are just “alternative facts” a la the Trump White House’s new phrase du jour

In Haaretz, Chemi Shalev warns against those who might compare reactions to Trump’s war with the media to that waged by Netanyahu as a way of bolstering support from his base.

“The US is not Israel, its journalists are still ethical, its opposition is not flaccid and public opinion is far from being held hostage by the new president, or broken by it,” he writes optimistically. But he also warns that Trump’s tenuous hold on reality could prove a danger for those in Israel who have hailed his arrival.

“If he can’t take criticism or insults or minimum challenge to his authority without losing it completely, the future will almost certainly hold a dangerous direct confrontation with the president,” he writes. “And if Trump’s denial of reality reflects a more serious personality phenomenon, that in psychology can even reach psychosis, it’s less critical right now to think about moving the US Embassy or annexing Ma’ale Adumim than it is to start praying to God and stockpiling food.”