Time is money

Corruption, sexual impropriety, abuse of power — the headlines in the Hebrew papers on Friday highlight a rash of domestic scandals, including new recordings incriminating former prime minister Ehud Olmert and harassment allegations and an alleged cover-up in the IDF’s elite Givati infantry brigade. In the background, the US pledge to veto the current draft of the Palestinian UN bid also receives ample coverage, as does continued electioneering.

Israel Hayom leads with the eight new recordings released for publication in the Holyland case on Thursday, in which Olmert can be heard telling his aide Shula Zaken that he would pay her $10,000 for every month of jail time she serves.

“Former prime minister Ehud Olmert did not want the conversations featured in this article to appear,” the paper reports, emphasizing that the ex-premier’s appeal to keep the details under gag order went unheeded. The former prime minister had argued that releasing the recordings would violate his privacy rights.

“From reading the transcripts it emerges that the main damage [it causes] is not to Olmert and Zaken’s privacy, but rather [destroys the perception among] all those who innocently wished to believe that the former prime minister couldn’t possibly have spoken almost like a common criminal,” the paper reports.

All three national dailies feature lengthy transcripts of the damning conversations.

Meanwhile, Yedioth Ahronoth leads with the IDF harassment probe against the commander of a Givati battalion, Col. Liran Hajbi. The report spotlights Hajbi’s superior, Col. Ofer Winter being questioned under caution amid accusations that he failed to pass on the complaints.

Reporter Yossi Yehoshua explains that the officer who turned to Winter with the complaints against Hajbi (and then later turned in Winter for allegedly failing to pass on the information to the proper authorities) had a long history of butting heads with the accused commander.

“From the very first moment, there was no chemistry between the two, and over time their relationship deteriorated further until Hajbi asked to remove B. [the unnamed officer who reported the allegations] from his position,” he reports.

Complicating things further, a different Givati officer turned to the head of the Southern Command, Sami Turgeman, who was overseeing the investigation and told him: “They’re lying to you.”

Due to the conflicting reports, the probe will focus not only on the sexual harassment claims, but will also investigate who lied, it reports.

The paper also interviews a number of soldiers who were deployed under Hajbi in the past, and who say they were “not surprised” by the allegations.

“He would close himself off for many hours with female soldiers and officers with the doors locked,” one soldier said. “We never knew what was happening there, but everyone in the unit suspected that something was not right.”

Hajbi’s relatives defended him, and criticized the public for assuming his guilt.

“It hurts that the public opinion has already sealed his fate and he has become the Dreyfus of our times,” his brother Elad said.

The paper also points to a different sex scandal in the IDF in which a senior intelligence officer, 41, is accused of having sex with an underage boy. According to the officer, the boy told him he was 16 (the age of consent in Israel); the minor maintains he made it clear he was 15.

Offsetting the IDF scandals, the paper reports that a female Mossad agent in her 20s – name and operational activity unknown – was honored for her bravery this week. The agent was rewarded for several high-risk operations behind enemy lines.

“She was drafted only a few years ago, she is not yet 30 years old, and she’s already a hero,” it reports.

The paper quotes new figures on the makeup of the shadowy spy agency, according to which 40 percent of its employees are women, 24% of those in senior positions. One-quarter of employees are between the ages of 22 and 32.

Over in Haaretz, the political and diplomatic issues trump all the local scandals. The paper leads with an analysis by Yossi Verter, who maintains that the rotation agreement between Labor party leader Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni is not set in stone, and will be coordinated with other coalition partners, should they be tasked with assembling the next coalition.

“Anyway, those who are worried that the rotation agreement is liable to torpedo the formation of a future coalition – given the logical scenario that a candidate from the center-right, be it Avigdor Liberman or Moshe Kahlon, will also demand two years for himself – can relax. Livni and Herzog agreed, apparently in written form on their iPads, that she will replace Herzog midterm only if their joint slate is so large that no one else is in a position to ask for a little rotation,” he writes.

The paper’s editorial is dedicated to the Palestinian statehood bid, and urges Israel to “welcome” the resolution, with some tweaking. While the Palestinian right of return clause would need adjusting, “the overall proposal is worthy of support because of the important innovation it contains: It sets a time period both for continuing the negotiations and for Israel’s withdrawal – by the end of 2017.”

“The Israeli negotiations will no longer be conducted with the Palestinians alone but also with the major powers, including the United States. The government would do well to study the proposal and even submit its objections – but to finally acknowledge the international reality closing in on Israel the occupier.”