Bad news Likud

One would be hard pressed to call the picture on the front page of Monday’s Yedioth Ahronoth a good photo. Showing three policemen in a car, the picture is grainy, lacking much focus or framing. But their faces (or at least the two that are visible) tell a deeper story, their visages somewhere between a tired and resigned deer caught in headlights and an unprepared warrior stepping into the lion’s den.

זו הכותרת הראשית שלנו. העיתון מחכה לכם גם באפליקציה שלנו >> https://t.co/Wt5gZ3bym4 pic.twitter.com/5qH4yrEjO5

— ידיעות אחרונות (@YediotAhronot) November 20, 2017

It’s not a physical lion’s den they are entering, but rather the Prime Minister’s Residence, where they went Sunday to go over allegations made about gifts premier Benjamin Netanyahu and his family received from wealthy businessmen, even as his cronies have made it plainly clear that it is open season on police.

The straightforward news of the investigations, juicy enough on its own, is the focus of the Netanyahu investigations in both Yedioth and Haaretz, with both papers rehashing the leaked testimony of Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan’s aide, in which she spoke about shuttling gifts to the prime minister.

Yedioth includes a fresh leak in which Sara Netanyahu defends herself as having just done what Milchan asked for, and reports that police are keen to wrap up the investigation by the middle of next month.

Haaretz notes that Netanyahus are expected to be questioned at least twice more, including regarding gifts they haven’t been asked about yet.

Ho-hum.

What’s humdrum in the other papers is anything but in Israel Hayom, where the reason behind the nervous and resigned glaze in cops’ eyes becomes clearer. The tabloid, seen as a mouthpiece for Netanyahu, has little to say about the police interviewing the Netanyahus, instead sharpening its keyboard to go on the attack against former police media adviser Lior Horev after he quit his role under pressure from the highest echelons.

“The saga has ended. After the revelation of the police strategic adviser Lior Horev’s outsized political meddling, he removed himself from the list of advisers for Goldfinger Communications, which provides services to the police. However, Goldfinger will still advise the police, which has already prompted claims that even after he quit, Horev can still pull the strings from the behind the scenes,” the paper’s lede reads, basically channeling the Likud Central Committee.

As anyone who read Netanyahu’s initial attack on Horev saw, though, this was never really about Horev. And the idea that attacks on the police from Netanyahu’s underlings will not be stopping comes through loud and clear in Akiva Bigman’s column for the paper, which goes on the offensive against police chief Roni Alsheich for ever listening to his adviser in order to repair ties with the press.

“Will Horev’s ouster improve the situation? It’s hard to believe it will. The situation the police find themselves in today demands leadership from Alsheich and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. They needed to bring Horev to order or fire him six months ago. Instead, they played for time, the sore grew and Horev’s quitting — presented as if it were of his own initiative — came too little and too late,” Bigman writes. “In order to return the public’s trust to the police, the chief and Erdan need to try a lot harder. Throwing Horev under the bus to quiet criticism is definitely not enough.”

It’s not just the police who are being targeted in the bid to protect Netanyahu, but also the press, as Haaretz reports on a proposed law by MK David Amsalem (Likud) which would throw journalists in jail for a year if they publish material leaked from a police investigation ( i.e., everything anybody knows about the probe into Netanyahu).

Fortunately for the media, it seems nobody is taking the bait, the paper reports: “A senior coalition MK, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Haaretz that the bill in its present form has no future, and does not even have support within Amsalem’s own party. ‘The pivot to the media is a trial balloon by Amsalem that in the end will go nowhere,’ the lawmaker said.”

Yedioth covers another bill that is dead on arrival — a measure meant to clamp down on the state comptroller, who had also been critical of Netanyahu’s behavior, recommending a police probe.

Though right-wing columnist Shlomo Pyotrofsky’s defense of the bill shows that this is yet another right-left issue, he uses the author’s refusal to hand over phone records to the Movement for Quality Government, a normally liberal organization, as proof of the comptroller overstepping boundaries.

“The point of the bill was to return the state ombudsman to its true role — criticism — and keep it from becoming a second government. When the comptroller oversteps its authority and turns to criticism of Israeli policies, instead of dealing with auditing and ethical criticism, someone needs to remind it what its role is. If the law is not clear enough, it needs to be clarified,” he writes.

The papers also cover President Reuven Rivlin’s decision to not grant a pardon to Elor Azaria, convicted of killing a wounded Palestinian after an attack.

Yedioth’s coverage notes that after his decision, “Rivlin’s Facebook page filled with brickbats and a picture of him in a keffiyeh. But most of the criticism of the president came from senior Likud people, who went after him one after another.”

As for Likud’s newspaper of choice, Israel Hayom’s headline plays up Azaria’s family being “disappointed” in Rivlin, telegraphing its own unhappiness. But the paper does also chide the lawmakers, noting Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s response of “respecting the president but being sorry about his ruling.”

“If Liberman made sure to guard the president’s honor,” the paper notes, “Likud ministers and MKs did not bother to spare the rod.”