Action, traction, reaction

Newton’s Third Law, the one about actions having an equal and opposite reaction, is in full play in the Hebrew-language press Sunday morning as papers and pundits wrestle with Palestinian reactions to the death of Saad Dawabshe, a week after his toddler son was killed in a firebombing of his house, and responses from Jerusalem and New York to the dastardly nuclear deal with Iran.

Is a headline dealing with Israeli jitters about revenge terror attacks in the wake of the deaths of the Dawabshes at the hands of Jewish extremists the wrong way to tackle a tragedy or just a reflection of real threats?

Considering it sits on the front page of populist tabloid Israel Hayom, which usually has few qualms about engaging in Netanyahu-style fearmongering, the answer lies somewhere in between.

True, it’s not the paper’s fault that the army has in fact stepped up preparedness in the West Bank in the wake of Dawabshe’s death, nor is it making up the cookie-cutter threats from Palestinian hard-liners, but their headline, saying the IDF is on ”highest alert,” may take it a bit too far or show how much the term has lost all meaning through overuse. It’s only when reading the actual fine print of the story that one realizes this “highest alert” is actually not news at all, but has been going on for over a week, since the killing of infant Ali Saad Dawabshe.

“The high alert in Judea and Samaria is continuing after the death of the father of the Dawabshe family. Since the arson of the home in the village of Duma, forces have been on higher alert, with four battalions dispatched to the territories. On top of that, two infantry brigades are standing on high alert,” the paper reports. “In the security establishment, there is fear of a continuation of the atmosphere of lone wolf attacks, like there was last week, when two soldiers were seriously injured in a vehicular attack at Sinjil Junction. The soldiers who were injured were part of the stepped up forces.”

Haaretz also reports on the threats from Palestinian terror group Hamas following the death of Dawabshe, calling for “open and comprehensive confrontation against the occupation,” but the paper’s gentler tone focuses more on the loss for the family than the Israeli military response to a perceived threat.

“During his time at the hospital, hundreds of people came to visit Dawabshe, including Palestinian ministers, and the family has even put up thank you signs in both Hebrew and Arabic to welcome the visitors,” the paper reports.

Over in Yedioth Ahronoth-land, the tabloid’s focus is not on threatening messages issuing forth from Hamas, but rather some grade-A saber rattling from Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who not-so-subtly threatened to kill Iranian nuclear scientists in an interview with a German paper last week.

The paper, which awkwardly trumpets itself as the first website to report on Ya’alon’s interview with somebody else, reports that the minister’s message to the Germans is contained in a picture he has in his office of Israeli F-15s soaring over the Auschwitz death camp: “To remember, not to forget, to rely only on ourselves.”

Like a passage of Talmud, the paper notes that different pundits had different interpretations of Ya’alon’s words that “I can’t be responsible for the lives of Iranian scientists.”

“There were commentators that saw in it an admission that Israel stood behind a string of assassinations that saw the deaths of six Iranian nuclear scientists and a general of the revolutionary guards working to develop missiles. Others saw in the words of Ya’alon a blatant threat that he would resume the assassinations or attack Iran’s nuclear facilities,” the paper reports.

Ya’alon may think his only option to rage against the nuclear deal is to crack some Iranian skulls, but New York’s Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer was able to find a more constructive way of opposing the deal, by cracking the Congressional firewall the Obama administration is trying to build to protect the pact from a veto-busting supermajority being enabled by party rebels.

Schumer’s mutiny – coupled with a number of other Democrats turning against the accord in the House – is termed “a severe blow to Obama” in Israel Hayom.

The paper’s Boaz Bismuth also tries to get his own punches in against Obama, whom he accuses of just not getting why some people might not be so gung-ho about the nuclear accord.

“Obama needs to understand that it’s not personal. It’s enough to glance at the statements of the deal’s supporters to understand that Israel, and also in America, some are very worried. For instance Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York, who supported the deal. She said it’s not perfect and estimated Iran would continue to lie and even dispatch its forces. Is it possible those who oppose the deal aren’t ‘boors,’ as the president tried to present them, according to pundits, in his Washington speech? Perhaps they are just realistic?”

But just as Schumer’s opposition was a reaction to the Iran deal, some saw in the White House’s counter-reaction to the New York senator shades, or even brightly colored brushstrokes, of anti-Semitism. Not so Haaretz New York correspondent Chemi Shalev, who takes the Tablet magazine website to task for what he terms an “over-the-top” editorial accusing the Obama administration of reacting with “dark, nasty stuff we might expect to hear at a white power rally.”

The website, he accuses, is fostering a double standard in which Jews can use their faith as a shield only when it’s convenient for them.

“The editorial gives opponents of the Iran deal a powerful weapon with which to silence any criticism of Netanyahu or AIPAC or Jewish Democrats who oppose the president,” Shalev writes. “It provides a convenient way for the GOP and other right-wingers to have their cake and eat it too: Netanyahu is allowed to address 10,000 American Jewish leaders and activists from Jerusalem, but mentioning their faith is forbidden; he is allowed to be the sole foreign leader to openly campaign against the deal, but singling him out is verboten; AIPAC can raise emergency funds, cancel all vacations and send its lobbyists to canvass on Capitol Hill, but say the words ‘lobby’ or ‘money’ and you are quickly branded a bigot; Schumer can famously boast that he sees himself as a keeper of Israel but you won’t dare say that when he seems to live up to his promise.”