Biberman redux

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s apparent rejection of unity government talks with Zionist Union in favor of bringing in ultra-nationalist party Yisrael Beytenu, offering chief Avigdor Liberman the Defense Ministry — and ousting fellow Likud member and former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon in the process — is all the papers can talk about on Thursday morning.

The earth-shattering power play by the prime minister, which wasn’t confirmed by either Likud or Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party, is worthy of all the press’s pundits and all the press’s analysts. Few have much praise for the state of affairs.

An elated Israel Hayom calls the turnaround, in which Netanyahu jilted the Zionist Union and its leader Isaac Herzog and turned his attention to Liberman, a “revolution” on its front page. “Liberman’s defense [ministry]” reads the cover of Yedioth Ahronoth, which shunts the already dejected Herzog to the bottom, as Netanyahu did, and exults in the “political drama” of Ya’alon’s soon-to-be dismissal from his post.

Haaretz has no fewer than eight op-eds about it on its front page, outdoing Yedioth Ahronoth’s five and Israel Hayom’s comparatively meager four, and any other news such as the gas deal getting back on track or the mayor of Ashkelon (who’s suspected of rape and corruption) returning to his job, gets Ya’aloned as well.

Dan Margalit of Israel Hayom stands by Likud MK Benny Begin’s rejection of the move, calling Liberman’s appointment as defense minister “a grave error” and “a national burden.” He reluctantly predicts that Liberman “could entangle Israel with the whole world with his unchecked aggression or turn out to actually be a trained poodle.”

Margalit’s colleague at Israel Hayom, Mati Tuchfeld, calms the critics, saying that Liberman defied expectations by managing the Foreign Ministry just fine, and that he proved there’s a difference between being a vocal opposition member and a functional member of the government. He says the price Netanyahu is paying to expand the government and silence is “a few lone MKs who embittered his life… not particularly high.” He disagrees with Margalit, saying Liberman’s inclusion is anything but problematic.

Haaretz’s editorial rebuts Tuchfeld’s argument, saying that while Liberman did little to damage the country’s reputation as foreign minister, the potential was smaller. Putting “responsibility for the army and the mechanism for occupying the territories in his hands,” the paper says, means “he can generate crises and endanger the national interest without limit.”

It rails at Netanyahu for endangering national security “just to protect his regime.”

Yedioth Ahronoth’s two-page opening spread of op-eds on the issue kicks off with Nahum Barnea calling it “a tragedy dressed up as a comedy.” After his usual rambling anecdotal introduction, Barnea points out a litany of problems with Liberman’s appointment as defense minister, which boil down to the following: he has no military experience, doesn’t represent the IDF’s core values and wouldn’t be an appropriate successor to the premier (as is traditional for the post). His bottom line is that Liberman would be a disastrous defense minister.

In his Yedioth Ahronoth column, Ben Dror-Yemini recommends hedging ones bets on Liberman turning out so bad. “A disaster? It’s better to wait and see,” he says. “True, here and there the Yisrael Beytenu head has been heard saying things that would make one shudder. But the truth is there are two of them. One is Yvet [Liberman], the scary politician, who teeters between the right and far-right, and then there is Liberman, a serious and responsible politician.”

With all the focus on the government, the opposition’s internal strife gets the back burner. Herzog came out swinging at Zionist Union MK and former Labor Party leader Shelly Yachimovich, saying the fact that the unity government deal fell through was her fault. The fact that members of his own party are calling on Herzog to resign only makes it to Page 5 in Haaretz, and even lower in the tabloids. In this whole affair, the Hebrew press, like the Zionist Union, clearly considers Herzog to be the biggest loser.

With all the explosive energy going on in the Knesset, the amendment of a clause in the government’s deal with energy companies that can help the accord come into fruition barely makes headlines. The calls for Welfare Minister Haim Katz to resign amid a corruption scandal, which ordinarily would dominate the front pages, gets barely any attention in the one-trick news on Thursday.