Sick of Clinton’s sickness

Hillary Clinton’s illness and its impact on the presidential race in the United States continue to generate headlines in Israel, while incendiary comments from senior ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government vie for room on the front pages.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman made a rash of comments at Ariel University in the West Bank that grab headlines Tuesday. Israel Hayom and Yedioth Ahronoth opt to lead with his statement that no matter what, he would stand by an IDF soldier charged with manslaughter for shooting an incapacitated Palestinian in March. “In any case, we will stand by his side, even if he erred — it doesn’t matter what the court rules,” he’s quoted saying. Haaretz, on the other hand, chooses to lead off with his remark that “there’s no chance of preventing the evacuation of Amona,” an illegal West Bank outpost. “There’s a conclusive ruling, and therefore there’s no chance of keeping Amona as it’s built today — most of the houses there [are built] on private Palestinian land,” he is quoted by the paper saying.

None of the major papers chose to highlight his advocacy — for the first time as defense minister — of booting a large number of Arab citizens of Israel by adjoining their towns to a future a future Palestinian state.

Not to be outdone, Education Minister Naftali Bennett went on the record saying that Torah learning was more important than math or science, baffling comments which Haaretz gives greater priority to than Liberman’s, and which Israel Hayom ignores altogether. A year ago, Yedioth Ahronoth notes, Bennett outlined his plan for boosting mathematics education in Israel, calling math key to the future success of Israeli students.

“Learning about Judaism and excellence in the subject is more important in my eyes than mathematics and the sciences,” he said. He hedged his comments by saying that Torah education is not owned by any group within Jewish society.

But while Liberman and Bennett’s comments rile at home, they’re a storm in a teacup compared to the issue of the week: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s health. It was the focus of the Hebrew press Monday, it’s the focus of the Hebrew press Tuesday, and barring major calamity at home or abroad, it’s sure to be the center of attention Wednesday.

It’s Republican candidate Donald Trump’s wish that Clinton would get well soon that gets the headlines in Israel Hayom. Its coverage touches briefly on the back and forth between the two campaigns about transparency regarding medical records, but the focus is almost entirely on Clinton’s illness, underscoring the “storm in the US around her health condition and its concealment.”

“In the meantime,” the paper says, “although there are still nine weeks until election day, the questions regarding Clinton’s capability to continue the campaign need to receive answers quickly since in several US states early voting has begun.”

The two underlying issues in the coming days of the election campaign are health and transparency, writes Yedioth Ahronoth. Whereas Israel Hayom points to her physical incapability to run as the issue at hand, Yedioth Ahronoth says that if she’ll pay a price for Sunday’s “medical episode,” it will be for whitewashing her health problems. The paper’s correspondent compares Hillary’s pneumonia to the Watergate scandal and her husband Bill Clinton’s sex scandal, noting that it was the president’s deceit, rather than his actions per se, that was found unconscionable.

The paper’s commentator Alon Pinkas breaks down the episode sympathetically, pointing out how hard Clinton has worked at the campaign and how, despite being ill, put on a bulletproof vest in 80° heat and went to Ground Zero on Sunday so as to avoid “unpleasant questions.” The whole episode, he says, isn’t a story. “But because the woman is called Hillary Clinton, it’s a story,” Pinkas argues. “This woman is contending for the presidency, and if the elections were held today she would win a decisive victory. Therefore it’s permitted to ask questions and demand answers. This woman also has trust problems in the eyes of the public, and therefore the story became even bigger.”

“But it’s important to maintain a sense of proportions. The sky didn’t fall, the presidential race wasn’t shaken, and the incident wasn’t ‘seminal,'” he says, brushing away claims of a conspiracy. “Clinton wasn’t infected with an alien disease. She apparently also isn’t pregnant. It’s pneumonia, and contrary to lots of people (mostly men) she’s continuing to work without mourning her misfortune.”

Chemi Shalev of Haaretz warns in a front page op-ed that Clinton should be worried by Trump’s wish that she get better. He’s waging a concentrated attack on her by actively inciting against her and passively “behaving like a supposed gentleman” and wishing her well while leaving the media to cover her collapse from wall to wall.

“The fact that Trump demonstrates discipline in the meantime in order to stick to the tactics his aides decided must really bother Clinton, who until now counted on the series of scandals her opponent committed,” he says.

Despite the twin scandal of Pneumoniagate and calling Trump supporters “a basket of deplorables,” Clinton still enjoys a comfortable lead over Trump, Shalev comforts his readers. “But for Trump to start dreaming about victory, for him to be able to point to the possibility of overcoming the substantial lead the Democrats have in the presidential race, he needs to win in two states that belong to the blighted economic region called The Rust Belt: Ohio and Pennsylvania.”