On the slow train to Firedsville

Benito Mussolini’s supposed ability to make the trains run on time, while not actually true, is sometimes used as a defense of totalitarian systems. For all their other ills, they are at least efficient. Dictators can get things done. Democracies, on the other hand, are messy and inefficient, carrying out the supposed will of the people. Sometimes that means the trains don’t run on time.

In Israel on Sunday, it meant the train didn’t run at all, thanks to the will of a very loud minority.

The byzantine political situation that led to the trains in and out of Tel Aviv being shut down – byzantine both in that it was torturous and devious, and that it harked back to a time when religion and state were inseparable — is very much on the mind of the press Monday morning. Though with trains running again, tales of the traffic-jammed highways of the powerless take a backseat to the ensuing fallout in the halls of the powerful, with papers pondering if and when heads will begin to roll down the tracks. In Israeli democracy, even the firings don’t run on time.

And as Israelis zoom on those Shabbat-keeping tracks, paper in hand, they can ponder who wields the real power. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sometimes a strongman and sometimes a flaccid pawn; the ultra-Orthodox, who apparently have the prime minister by his pious balls, or Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, who managed to engineer a supposed attempted coup but still sat smiling next to Netanyahu at the cabinet meeting Sunday.

While the blame game is only the press’s second favorite (after “Is it an intifada yet?”) they still play it with relish Monday morning, with Haaretz and Yedioth Ahronoth lambasting Netanyahu for making a deal with the ultra-Orthodox devil that left commuters snarled and snarling, and Israel Hayom, acting as always as Netanyahu’s mouthpiece, blaming Katz.

Israel Hayom’s headline, “Solve the crisis or take responsibility,” can easily be aimed at any of the train-halting triumvirate, but the paper makes clear that the words are aimed squarely at Katz for his dastardly decision to allow track work during the Jewish day of rest. The paper notes that Netanyahu and Katz didn’t even exchange pleasantries at the start of the meeting, and quotes “sources near the prime minister” saying (apparently in a chorus), “The firing of Katz is still on the table.”

In Yedioth, though, the blame lies squarely with Netanyahu, especially since the paper reports, in what it calls an expose, that Netanyahu himself signed off on the same Shabbat train work eight months ago, when he was sitting in as economy minister, rolling back halts on the work imposed by ultra-Orthodox lawmaker Aryeh Deri (Shas), and not caring if the work was a matter of life and death, a criterion demanded by the ultra-Orthodox for all Shabbat work.

“Among the work Netanyahu okayed in November 2015 was also redoing rails considered to be important, but fixing it during the week wouldn’t have endangered lives, but rather led to inconveniences for riders. Exactly the same inconvenience experienced by travelers and soldiers yesterday, caused by Netanyahu’s decision on Friday [to call off train work],” the paper reports.

The tabloid reports that Netanyahu was forced to keep Katz to stem a possible Likud rebellion, with Labor Minister Haim Katz and Deputy Housing and Construction Minister Jackie Levy threatening to jump ship. “A move like that could put Likud in a tailspin that could lead to election,” Levy is quoted saying.

But columnist Nahum Barnea writes that Israelis shouldn’t be concerned with Katz’s political fate but rather their own, with train stoppages being only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

“The day is not far when Health Minister [Yaakov] Litzman will want to know why work is being done in the hospital on Shabbat, or why a terminal patient was unhooked from a machine, or why approve the abortion of a girl in an unwanted pregnancy,” he writes. “And not just Litzman, what will Communications Minister Netanyahu do when the Haredi street asks why the public broadcaster broadcasts on Shabbat; what will sport minister Regev, a known Shabbat-keeper from Rio, do when Haredim are reminded about soccer games on Shabbat, paid for by the government. Why is it okay for soccer, but fixing a rail line not, let the damage be what it will be? … In other words, what starts with the train won’t end with the train.”

Barnea’s predictions become even more worrisome when considering Haaretz’s lead story, which reports on economists warnings that forcing the country to shut down on Saturday could have disastrous results. The paper’s reporting, though, bears out that most people in both private and public sectors aren’t that worried, saying that can find workarounds, like a Shabbos goy.
“The solution is just not to employ Jews,” one businessperson says. “Once you’re not employing Jews on Shabbat, the Labor Ministry isn’t in the picture.”

But If the traffic jams of Sunday are a harbinger of the future, Israel, and Netanyahu, have reason to worry. A flash poll by Yedioth finds that 49 percent blame Netanyahu and 14% blame Katz for the impasse.

“In the current confrontation, Netanyahu is seen by the media as standing on the wrong side,” Israel Hayom’s Mati Tochfeld writes. “Perhaps that’s a good reason to calm things.”

But in Haaretz, columnist Yossi Verter writes that Netanyahu won’t soon let Katz escape with his hide, not because of trains or the ultra-Orthodox or the supposed attempted putsch, but for an offense much more grievous, an insult to lady Netanyahu by Katz on a TV program Saturday night.

“’The first remark was by [Katz’s] wife, Ronit, who shared with reporter Haim Etgar the couple’s plans to occupy the prime minister’s residence in the future. ‘I don’t connect to being called ‘Ma’am,’ said Ronit, in a broad hint at someone else who insists on being so called. And if that weren’t enough, her husband followed her lead and delivered his own jab at the woman who occupies the residence and her husband. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told viewers. ‘[Ronit] knows how to behave anywhere,’” Verter writes. “Indeed, don’t worry. We will hear about this yet.”