On the ropes

Everyone is on the defensive: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, IDF shooter in Hebron Elor Azaria, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Israel Hayom. Depending on the paper, the order of priority of whose defense is most important differs in Tuesday’s papers, but the actors are all more or less the same.

In Haaretz, for example, it’s Netanyahu engaging in self-defense in a meeting with military affairs reporters in which he rebuffed criticism of his previous government’s handling of the threat posed by Hamas terror tunnels on the eve of Operation Protective Edge in 2014. A day before the official memorial for soldiers killed in the 50-day operation in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu said that “the claim that there wasn’t discussion of the tunnels is the opposite of the truth.”

In the aftermath of the operation in Gaza, Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett and Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman took aim at Netanyahu and charged that there was no specific discussion of the threat posed to residents of the south by Hamas tunnels.

The front page of Israel Hayom is given to Netanyahu’s rejection of criticism over the Gaza tunnels, which comes as no great surprise to anybody. What is surprising is the puerile bragging posing as its main story on Page 2: Israel Hayom, the country’s most-read rag, blowing its own trumpet that it has increased its readership edge over Yedioth Ahronoth to 5%, going so far as to quote anonymous “industry sources praising Israel Hayom” because Yedioth Ahronoth “invests huge resources in its attempt to close the gap.” Haaretz, it says, quoting the TGI newspaper readership poll, is down to a mere 3.9% of total readership.

Moreover, it brings in Israel Hayom fanboy No. 1 Haim Shine to stroke the paper’s ego even more with his vacuous op-ed entitled “The paper loves the state, and the state, the paper.” Whether he means the people or the government isn’t abundantly obvious, but considering the newspaper’s adherence to a pro-Netanyahu line like flypaper on a tsetse’s rump, it’s likely the latter. He proceeds to tout the paper’s accomplishments as a blow to the media establishment that “had become the basis of a jump in the corruption of Israeli society.”

Yedioth Ahonroth pays no heed to the survey which Israel Hayom invests so much significance in, instead sticking to the ongoing trial of the Hebron shooter. After claiming that his commanding officer slapped him after he shot an unarmed Palestinian stabber, Azaria took the stand and was subjected to the prosecution’s inquiries. The paper says that while he started the day full of self confidence, he ended it befuddled and struggling to answer.

Israel Hayom, which appears to sympathize with Azaria, reports that “throughout the day [the prosecutor] tried to undermine the credibility of the soldier, and Azaria for his part whispered at times, spoke slowly at times, answered the prosecutor that he didn’t understand the questions, sometimes avoided giving answers and it was obvious that he was in a crisis.”

The judge’s remark to him “we don’t understand why you’re wriggling” gets the headline in both Israel Hayom and Yedioth Ahronoth. Most of Yedioth Ahronoth’s coverage is a play-by-play he-said-he-said account of the trial, which makes for as interesting reading as the instruction manual to a washing machine.

Haaretz folds Azaria’s ongoing testimony before a military tribunal, where he faces manslaughter charges for shooting an incapacitated Palestinian terrorist, into its broader story about Netanyahu statements of the day. Haaretz reports that Netanyahu spoke with Azaria’s father over the phone, and told reporters that “perhaps we will find new things” in the proceedings against Azaria.

Israel Hayom suffices with quoting him saying that he saw no reason not to call Azaria’s father, and that “the question of what happened [in Hebron] is being clarified now. We need to let the justice system give its position.” The remark that the inquiry may bring new things to light gets no mention.

Whereas the Republican National Convention was the talk of the Israeli papers, the Democrats get less attention, with only Yedioth Ahronoth placing the crisis facing Hillary Clinton on the front page. The crux of the matter for all three papers is the poll that shows Clinton trailing Republican nominee Donald Trump, and the crisis among the Dems after Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s departure as head of the Democratic National Convention and Bernie Sanders’s supporters’ reluctance to support Clinton.

Yedioth Ahronoth reports that the convention in Philadelphia opened “with the feeling of complete chaos” after the leak of DNC emails. Israel Hayom, as expected, laps up the party’s misfortunes with a healthy dose of schadenfreude, with its reporter Boaz Bismuth gleefully reporting that everything the liberal papers reported on the GOP convention has befallen the Democrats.