Guam with the wind

Amid escalating tensions between US and North Korea, the deadly white supremacist rally in Virginia over the weekend and the growing corruption investigations into the prime minister, the three most prominent Hebrew-language newspapers in Israel on Monday reflect vastly different takes on these latest developments.

Yedioth Ahronoth goes with the impending threat of nuclear war in the Pacific for its front page on Monday. In Guam, Yedioth’s Nahum Barnea sheds some light for Israelis on the tiny US territory at the center of an escalating nuclear crisis between Washington and Pyongyang.

“In all of the previous standoffs, Kim Jung-un has played the role of the crazy one, and the rest of the world has played the role of the responsible adult,” he writes. “But in the current standoff, Kim has met his match.”

“The battle of rhetoric is reminiscent of wrestling matches: both sides threaten the other… it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s a show.”

But, Barnea probably rightly concludes, “regardless of if there will be a war, nobody is going to ask the people of Guam what they think.”

Sunday’s Yedioth also features a column by Channel 2 correspondent Amnon Abramovich, who lays into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his latest attack on the media.

Last week, the prime minister posted a recording between Abramovich and an impostor, branding the leaked conversation “fake news.”

But Abramovich hit back at the prime minister, saying his social media post was a deliberate effort to discredit the media.

“When the prime minister takes something meant as entertainment and uses it in his Facebook posts, it’s yet another sign that he has lost all self control,” he says. “He has decided to to break all rules of the game. Does this mean that we journalists are allowed to go crazy?”

On its front page on Monday, Haaretz forgoes US-North Korea tensions, instead reporting on the deadly white supremacist rally in the US over the weekend and a possible buyout of Yedioth from the Mozes family by French-Israeli media tycoon Patrick Drahi.

The daily dubs the potential Drahi-Mozes deal a move that would “end one of Israel’s oldest media dynasties” and one that would “bring about significant change in the Israel media landscape.”

The left-wing paper also levels harsh criticism at Trump over his “outrageously tepid” response to Saturday’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left three people dead.

Columnist Chemi Shalev slams Trump as “amoral to the core,” saying his “running away when he needs to look evil in the eye is par for the course” for the US leader.

Meanwhile, the free Israel Hayom sticks closer to home, giving nearly its entire front page to the latest warning from Israeli officials about Iranian aggression.

Echoing Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, columnist Oded Granot argues that the West’s focus on eradicating the Islamic State from Syria has only served to embolden Terhan and its regional proxies.

While he says the encroaching Iran-backed Shiite militias “is not an existential threat,” Granot warns it’s “one that should not be taken lightly.”

He lays the responsibility for stopping Iranian encroachment squarely on Trump, saying that Tehran is closely monitoring the US president’s handling of the crisis with North Korea.

“If they sense hesitation or cowardice with North Korea, they will take it as a sign that the Americans are nothing to be afraid of,” he says.

He says Israel must do whatever necessary to prevent Hezbollah and other pro-Iranian groups from reaching Israel’s borders.

“Given the military capabilities of these groups, this is a red line for Israel,” he argues. “If the superpowers are unable to keep them away from the border, Israel must make clear that it will act alone if necessary.”