A tale of two Leos

Leo Leiderman’s announcement that he was dropping his candidacy for the governorship of the Bank of Israel, only two days after being designated for the job, dominates Sunday’s Hebrew dailies, as the papers play catch-up with Friday’s news.

Israel Hayom‘s main headline talks of Leiderman’s withdrawal and the embarrassment it caused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid, who now have to find yet another candidate to replace Stanley Fischer as the next Bank of Israel governor.

“The race is open for the third time in only one week,” the tabloid writes of Leiderman’s decision to forfeit the job before it was officially his. His announcement “really surprised the prime minister and finance minister,” the article says, since during their meeting on Wednesday the two made sure to ask Leiderman if there was something that could interfere with his appointment.

According to the paper, Leiderman told Lapid and Netanyahu he decided not to go through with the nomination.

But Yedioth Ahronoth reports that a phone call from the US asking the nomination committee to investigate the reason Leiderman left his job at Deutsche Bank back in 2002 was the cause of his withdrawal.

Netanyahu and Lapid wanted a quick fix for the problem caused by previous candidate Jacob Frenkel’s decision not to pursue the job, and their eagerness to fill the post might have caused them to act too quickly, the daily writes.

A woman who now lives in the US called the Turkel Committee and asked it to investigate Leiderman’s 2002 departure from the German bank, saying he had committed an offense and was forced to leave the prestigious post he had only recently stepped into.

Haaretz‘s story focuses on Netanyahu’s ongoing search for someone to replace Fischer, more than six months after the former governor announced his planned retirement, and names three people who are likely candidates for the post — as well as one less likely.

The paper leads the list with Eugene Kandel, a Hebrew University professor and the current economic adviser to the prime minister, reporting Netanyahu was already trying to convince him to accept the job. Professor Avi Ben Bassat, who served as the director general of the Finance Ministry, is second on the daily’s shortlist of nominees, followed by Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, who was tasked by Netanyahu to head a special committee following the 2011 social protests.

Karnit Flug, who served as the deputy governor under Fischer and has been acting as governor since his departure, is last on the paper’s list. After Netanyahu and Lapid decided to overlook Flug and offer the job first to Frenkel and then to Leiderman, she announced she’d leave the Bank of Israel. Nonetheless, the paper points her out as a worthy candidate who should be considered.

The headline in Maariv reports that two leading candidates have already been approached by Lapid and/or Netanyahu, and both turned down the job offer.

A Washington Post story describing the ongoing search for a new governor as a “soap opera” receives much space in the Hebrew daily. The paper quotes sources in the Bank of Israel who say Netanyahu “repeated the same mistake twice. He should have nominated Flug as governor and saved himself the embarrassment.”

One idea which surfaces throughout Sunday’s dailies is the need to change the way the governor is chosen. As Hezi Sternlicht (Israel Hayom) and Sever Plotzker (Yedioth) write, politicians should be given a list of names by a nominatiing committee only after those people have passed a background check; as with Supreme Court judges, the research needs to be done before the official announcement.

A suitcase containing a dismembered body found in Tel Aviv Saturday is covered by all the papers, though a court-mandated gag order and an apparent lack of leads prevent them from conveying more information.

The arrival of Barcelona FC in Israel for training clinics and an exhibition game in Tel Aviv Sunday is national news, featured on three of the papers’ front pages.

Children “have a reason to envy” the four Israel and Palestinian children chosen to kick the ball with Leo Messi, writes Yedioth in its coverage of the visit of one of the greatest teams in the history of soccer.