Them’s fightin’ words

A battle is a-brewing in the Israeli press over a possible Iran deal, though it’s hard to tell if Israel is more worried about Uncle Ayatollah or Uncle Sam, who uncle Bibi says is acting like an Iran-serving Uncle Tom.

Maariv gets the award for most overly dramatic front page, and does it without a single biohazard symbol, soaring fighter jet or menacing-looking Iranian official. Instead it features a picture of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the back, sitting on a plastic chair overlooking a cliff (of despair?). What’s not seen are the gaggles of people around him as he visited David Ben-Gurion’s grave site yesterday. Context is for suckers.

The picture is accompanied by a headline hawking the US’s brand spanking new talking point, that sanctions actually help Iran build the bomb (a point, by the way, which was first market-tested by Iran several months ago). The paper reports that Netanyahu has lost faith in Obama, a process which began at their White House meeting at the end of September and has only strengthened since.

Yedioth Ahronoth puts the crux of the dispute front and center with a less-than-diplomatic exchange between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Netanyahu gracing the front page. Kerry said he wasn’t sure Netanyahu knew the details of the proposed agreement with Iran, which would ease sanctions in return for curbing enrichment activity, but Netanyahu shot back that “I’m up to date on the deal and it’s bad and dangerous.”

The paper gives a whole play-by-play on the back and forth between the two, and also reports on the visit Sunday of undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman to try and get everybody to simmer down now.

“The Iranians are serious but we also don’t trust them,” an unnamed senior American official is quoted as saying (in a free translation of the Hebrew back to English). “The US is not deceiving Israel or hoodwinking it. It’s possible that Israel is being updated on the talks by other sources, creating confusion.”

Israel Hayom also leads off with the “battle over sanctions,” but focuses more on Netanyahu’s tough talking in the face of America’s lily-livered administration, including the quote “this won’t happen on my watch,” splashed across pages two and three.

If all this portends an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the paper’s Amos Regev is already fueling up the F-16s with fightin’ words, writing a column under the headline “Don’t say it’s impossible,” with the contention that if Britain could invade the Falkland Islands, Israel can also do what nobody thinks it can.

“The two historical cases are dissimilar. But the lines of human behavior and characteristics are definitely similar, since the dawn of time. The IDF and its soldiers have already proven they could do the impossible yesterday, and the unbelievable they can do tomorrow. On June 5, 1967, the air force operation Moked destroyed the Arab air threat. Not everything — they still had planes. But the target was delivered: air superiority and the destruction of an air threat over Israel.”

Haaretz, which plays the issue as small potatoes as compared to the typhoon in the Philippines, which has left some 10,000 dead, reports that the US and others will demand under a nuclear deal that the Arak heavy water reactor be shut down, saying it has no purpose under a peaceful nuclear program. The story also notes that despite all the crying from Israel, sanctions would only slightly be eased in exchange for slowing down enrichment.

“The sanction-easing under discussion – and it has not been agreed – are reversible and modest; the entire sanctions regime will not be changed until there is a comprehensive agreement. The Iranians would like it to be different, but it is not and they realize that,” an American official is quoted saying.

US correspondent Chemi Shalev reports that relations between Jerusalem and the White House are rivaling the nadir hit during the runup to the 2012 US presidential elections, when Netanyahu was seen as backing Mitt Romney. But, he notes, Washington still wants to be friends with Israel, and unless Jerusalem stops playing spoilsport, it’s going to find itself more sidelined than Saudi Arabia.

“If Israel plays its cards right, it could bring some of its objections to bear on the administration’s positions during the upcoming November 20 round of talks, as long as it realizes that the objectives outlined by Netanyahu yesterday – no enrichment and no centrifuges – are unattainable … Because A. Israel cannot afford an all-out war with the U.S. government; B. France will inevitably go back to being the same, old self-centered France; and C. For Iran, a situation in which Israel is viewed as derailing the talks, the international coalition is split and Jews are portrayed as having had such a direct influence on U.S. foreign policy would be a consolation prize almost as desirable as the terrible agreement that Netanyahu is protesting.”

Other storms

While the Iran talks storm is still raging, one just blew over a favorite vacation spot with Israelis, with results rivaling Netanyahu’s doom and gloom projections. Yedioth reports on Israelis in the Philippines caught up in the deadly typhoon, who rode it out on Malapscua island. “The island is completely destroyed,” Hagar Klein, 23, from Herzliya, tells the paper. “When the storm ended we went outside and saw the total destruction. Roofs flew off houses, coconut trees fell, the roads are blocked. Only today people made it to us to bring us rice and water.”

Maariv reports that the return of Avigdor Liberman to the cabinet is being met with some opposition by Netanyahu’s coalition allies. Both Economics Minister Naftali Bennett and Finance Minister Yair Lapid are protesting the addition of yet another minister to the cabinet as breaking the coalition agreement, which limited the number of ministers. Both aren’t necessarily against the recently cleared former foreign minister retaking his seat, but think Netanyahu has to show a little humility and coordinate it with them. “A change in the coalition agreement needs to be done through dialogue,” Bennet reportedly told Netanyahu. “If you don’t do it, we’ll see it as a breaking of the coalition agreement.”

The paper also reports that MK Tzachi Hanegbi, a former minister with Netanyahu’s ear, is the front-runner to take over the Knesset Defense and Foreign Relations committee from Liberman.
In Haaretz’s op-ed page, Yitzhak Laor decries the country’s lazy leftists, who left the job of deposing the democratically elected Liberman to the Justice Ministry, instead of carrying out the coup themselves. “The panic over Liberman’s acquittal can teach us something about what remains of the left. One representative declared on Facebook, with the emotion of a cantor on Tisha B’Av: ‘Exactly 18 years ago an envoy of the extreme nationalist right-wing managed to assassinate a prime minister. Today we have closed a circle. The transition from the country of Rabin to the country of Yvet Lieberman is complete.’ This narcissistic stupidity wouldn’t be worth quoting if it weren’t symptomatic: More serious spokesmen of the left also went overboard on panic. In this opposition they’re not looking for a strong leader; nearly the opposite. They want the leader thrown out, once and for all. In elections? No. In day-to-day battles for the street? No. In court. Because the court, like justice, is ‘one of us.’ And if the court acquits? Then we’ll have the last word on Facebook.”