Deciding not to decide: 6 things to know for April 17

1. “Exit” “strategy”: The cabinet convened late Thursday for its near-nightly meeting, with Israelis desperate for decisions to be made that will provide them with a clearer timetable for when they will be able to return to work.

• While Channel 12’s Dana Weiss quotes a minister assuring that verdicts will be handed by the end of the night, the clock strikes midnight and of course, nothing is approved.
• Instead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issues a statement, with broad declarations about how the economy will be returning to function starting Sunday, with little specifics. One senior official tells the Kan public broadcaster’s Moav Vardi, “Believe me, I have no idea what was decided… It was complete amateur hour in there.”
• Kan’s Shaul Amsterdamski reports that no other government office agrees with the Health Ministry’s criteria that there only be dozens of new cases a day in order to begin easing restrictions on the economy. Accordingly, the Finance Ministry has been working to recruit other offices to support its agenda so that the Health Ministry will have the minority view in cabinet meetings.
• Channel 13’s Barak Ravid reports that in an earlier meeting regarding the government’s so-called “exit strategy,” a heated exchange took place between Finance Ministry director Shai Bavad and Health Ministry director Moshe Bar Siman Tov, with the former sarcastically scoffing at the latter, “you’re not actually allowing us to discuss an exit strategy. Why don’t we dissolve the discussion and regroup when there are 10-20 new cases a day.” Bar Siman Tov responded, “You cannot judge everything based on the shekel,” as if to say that the Finance Ministry was ignoring health concerns.
• In Israel Hayom, senior Clalit director Ran Balicer asserts that like other government offices, the Health Ministry also needs an “exit strategy” that will allow patients who have been forced to delay non-coronavirus related appointments to receive treatment. “Back pain, teeth misalignment, a deterioration in the condition of someone suffering from mental illness — these all need to scare us more than coronavirus,” he argues.
• Kan’s Amsterdamski also explains the very complex dance authorities have to pull off in order to roll back restrictions: In order to re-start the economy, parents need to go back to work, but in order for that to happen, the schools need to re-open. But when the schools re-open, you’re unleashing into the open the population that infects at the fastest pace. He details a plan currently being weighed by the Education Ministry to begin allowing grades one through three to return to school in small groups for four days at a time followed by ten days of online learning. However, this has come under fire from parents and municipal leaders who point out that many homes do not have computers for their children to use, leading kids from less affluent families to fall further behind in their studies.
• Similarly frustrated is Yedioth’s Amichai Attali, who writes that the current form of online learning is “a multi-pronged punishment: The children don’t like it, some of the teachers can’t figure out how to operate it, but the main casualties are the parents.”

2. Dropping the ball: Channel 12 reveals that US intelligence agencies alerted Israel to the coronavirus outbreak in China already in November, but that the Health Ministry didn’t do anything with the information, in the latest report of a blunder that has made curbing the virus more difficult.

• In Haaretz, Noa Landau highlights a Health Ministry figure, according to which 40% of the confirmed cases among arrivals from abroad are those who returned from the US. She says that many of these arrivals went on to infect others because Netanyahu did not order retroactive quarantine for them due to fear of upsetting his buddy, US President Donald Trump.
• Yedioth Ahronoth highlights the situation in the Arab sector, which experts say has spiraled not because of the minority’s refusal to adhere to guidelines but rather the government’s neglect of the crowded communities. Eitan Glickman interviews a resident of Deir al-Assar who says, “the government’s care for the Arab communities, like that of the nursing homes, has been a failure. They always leave the Arabs until last. They only remembered about us after the outbreak had already hit. Apparently the Arabs are at the bottom of the list of priorities.”
• Kan’s Suleiman Maswadeh quotes an anonymous minister who laments that national religious neighborhoods were added to the Jerusalem closure list simply to appease the ultra-Orthodox leadership, who have been feeling singled-out after their communities have been the main ones shuttered thus far due to high numbers of confirmed cases.
• The New York Times’ David Halbfinger points out one area where authorities do appear to be getting it right in their handling of the pandemic: In Bnei Brak, police are showing residents footage of their neighbors enjoying their time praying, eating, studying and even dancing at the quarantine hotels in order to convince those who have been ordered to lodge there to do so.

3. Protesting religiously: Rather disturbing photos stream out from Tel Aviv where organizers say some 2,000 demonstrators gathered to protest what they describe as the erosion of Israeli democracy under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, amid the coronavirus pandemic.

• Police officials tell Kan that the action was held in line with coronavirus guidelines, which do indeed allow protests to be held, but Haaretz’s Josh Breiner points out that participants were not adhering to the rules which require them to keep two meters apart from one another and every group of ten people to spread out ten meters apart.
• “So this is allowed, while prayer in a quorum of ten is prohibited?” far-right activist Itamar Ben Gvir tweets.
• “Beyond the stupidity of whoever authorized this, there’s something in common between these protesters and those illegally praying in groups — their self-righteousness and utter mockery of those who continue to adhere to the guidelines,” adds Kan’s Yair Ettinger
• Channel 13’s Akiva Novick writes that he hopes a request is being written up to allow a mass prayer to be held in the same location with the same number of people and blames Netanyahu and his right-wing, religious partners for authorizing protests during the pandemic with limited oversight.
• Haaretz’s Noa Landau dismisses the criticism, saying that protesting is a more basic right that needs to be safeguarded, whereas the decision to bar group prayer was made in order to save lives. As for those who don’t agree with the decision, Landau encourages them to take to the streets.

4. Don’t make me legislate: Meanwhile, Blue and White and Likud negotiators convened for another marathon round of talks that reporters conclude went just about nowhere despite all the assurances that a deal is within reach.

• Frustrated over Netanyahu’s apparent refusal to stick with the already agreed to terms, Blue and White’s Benny Gantz tells fellow faction members that if there isn’t an agreement by Monday, he will begin advancing legislation aimed at preventing the Likud leader from becoming prime minister.
• Ynet’s Attila Somfalvi writes “good riddance,” arguing that the only way to convince Netanyahu to play ball is through force.
• But Yedioth’s Sima Kadmon is less impressed with the threat, summarizing Gantz as in effect saying, “either you let us be ministers in your government or we will advance legislation barring you from serving as prime minister.”
• Yamina MK and Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich says the move shows that Gantz does not really care about rule of law and democracy given his willingness to work with the same Netanyahu, and argues that the legislation he’s threatening suggests he’s not fit to serve as premier. Smotrich calls the anti-Netanyahu legislation “extortion.”
• Kadmon says that a proposal put forward by Yesh Atid’s ex-Gantz ally Yair Lapid — to freeze the political situation for six months while allowing the transitional government to continue ruling with the Blue and White-controlled Knesset to serve as a balance of power — is one worth considering and may be the only opportunity for Gantz to save face.
• Kan’s Michael Shemesh reports that while Blue and White is not bluffing regarding its legislative plans, Gantz wants to begin with a law instituting term limits before it moves forward with the more personal legislation of barring indicted lawmakers from forming a coalition.

5. Friend turned foe: Channel 13’s Raviv Drucker reports that the only issue stalling the negotiations is Netanyahu’s concern that in a year and a half, the High Court will bar him from being deputy prime minister because of the indictment he is facing.

• Channel 12’s Amit Segal adds that in addition to anti-Netanyahu laws, Gantz also wants to promote progressive legislation regarding issues of religion and state in a not-so-subtle warning to the ultra-Orthodox parties who he evidently thinks are not doing enough to keep their word that they won’t allow Netanyahu to jerk Blue and White around.
• In a Haaretz interview, Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelah unleashes against his former party leader, calling Gantz weak and MK Gabi Ashkenazi a two-timer.
• Segal points out that after three elections, Yesh Atid has started using the Likud playbook of attacks against Gantz’s character.
• The Times of Israel’s founding editor, David Horovitz, explains how after walking back on his main campaign promise and theoretically agreeing to a unity government led by Netanyahu, Gantz has in fact merely provided the Likud leader with “three reasonable paths to retaining power and, barring judicial intervention, no real prospect of losing it.”
• And if you weren’t depressed enough as the prospect of a fourth election grows, Globes’s Tal Schneider gives you a date — August 4.

6. Kids run the nation: In what continues to be one of the more preposterous stories to take up headlines, a group of hilltop youth, who allegedly firebombed a group of Palestinians who had parked outside the outpost built by the IDF for the Israeli extremists to self-quarantine, have now vanished from the premises.

• Kan’s Carmel Dangor reports that the teenagers decided to scram due to fears that their arrests were imminent
• They left the place a complete mess, with trash and furniture left for who-knows-who to collect.

• Two of their friends were briefly arrested for trying to steal some of the tents, apparently in order to use them for building future outposts
• Dangor reports that law enforcement is also probing whether the gasoline used to torch the Palestinian vehicles in the arson attack earlier this week was the same fuel that the army supplied to the hilltop youth in order to run the generator at their outpost.
• Channel 13’s Yishai Porat mocks the police’s decision to issue a gag order on reporting on the investigation into the firebombing after three days in which law enforcement made no arrests and allowed the suspects to coordinate their versions of events.
• He also wonders aloud on Twitter how the IDF neglected to guard the outpost both before and after the arson attack.
• Haaretz’s Noa Shpigel asks why the suspects haven’t been arrested when the Shin Bet is tracing the locations of anyone who has come in contact with a COVID-carrier, which the teens have.
• “It is not just the IDF that gave pampering coverage to the hilltop youth, but the police as well. Every one of them should have at least been fined for breach of quarantine and shattering the bus that took them to the isolation hotel. But hey, a man was seen running through Hayarkon Park, which was a more urgent target of their attention,” writes Kan’s Roi Sharon, mocking police priorities.