Hurricane Yair
Irmageddon and Grand Wizard Yair Netanyahu whip around the media landscape, blowing fear, anger and pointing fingers every which way
Joshua Davidovich is The Times of Israel's Deputy Editor
Storms brewing on opposite sides of the world have the attention of the press on Monday: a literal storm in the US as Hurricane Irma lashes Florida, and a figurative storm in Israel, as the Netanyahu family, already buffeted by scandal, is accused of getting into bed with neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
One storm, the deadly, monster hurricane wreaking havoc across most of Florida, is ripe for great pictures and breathless first person accounts from those weathering the rain and winds, even as it slowly dies down over land. The other storm (or Daily Stormer), the one sparked when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair decided to post an anti-Semitic meme, is ripe for withering cartoons and angry denunciations from a pundit-class nonplussed that a family in Israel’s seat of power could ever sink so low — while the brouhaha is seemingly only gaining steam.
It was bad enough enough when Netanyahu Jr. posted the meme showing George Soros, a Reptilian and an International Jew controlling his father’s accusers, but with neo-Nazis now praising him, and his parents — including the leader of Israel’s government — keeping mum, the affair seems to kick into another gear, even after Yair Netanyahu deleted the post Sunday.
Cartoons in both Haaretz and Yedioth Ahronoth are both harshly critical of Junior, with Yedioth’s showing Ku Klux Klansmen celebrating him as the next prime minister, and Haaretz’s depicting the Netanyahu family wearing Klan robes, celebrating the fact that David Duke shared the meme, and Sara Netanyahu making plans to invite him for “champagne and takeout.”
Cartoons are meant to be over the top, but Haaretz’s lead editorial brings the criticism back down to its very real and very ridiculous proportions, putting the onus on the prime minister for failing to publicly condemn his son’s actions.”
“The anti-Semitic meme is not Yair Netanyahu’s first public outrage, but it is his worst. This time, silence in light of such an alarming message cannot be interpreted as anything but consent to the ongoing demonization of anyone who doesn’t get in line with the Israeli right, which is becoming ever more extreme,” the editorial reads.
Netanyahu may have to make do with giving consent by being silent, but Israel Hayom, which is seen as acting as his de facto mouthpiece, has no such constraints. Columnist Dror Eidar defends the cartoon as nothing to get worked up about, and claims that all it shows is how terrible left-wingers are, since they are really the ones in cahoots with neo-Nazis.
“I went on the site of David Duke, a KKK head, and I saw that he didn’t share the cartoon but rather an article about the cartoon from Haaretz in English. It’s not a coincidence that that’s the newspaper he follows,” Eidar writes, and he goes on to try to tar Yedioth Ahronoth as anti-Semitic for reporting that the man appointed to be the IDF’s chief rabbi said rape is okay during wartime.
In Yedioth, though, Ben-Dror Yemini (who was singled out in Eidar’s column) decries the right’s attempt to turn the cartoon into a political issue.
“Have we lost all common sense that every public debate needs to start and end with left-right? Are we unable to condemn blatant anti-Semitism without any regard for this stupid division, at least in this case, between right and left?” he asks.
If Yemini really wants to escape right-left battles, perhaps he should consider writing about the weather, which usually transcends such silliness. Coverage of Hurricane Irma is eyewall to eyewall — without a single mention of a lefty traitor or a righty fascist — in both major tabloids, both of which focus on Miami, which for most Israelis is the totality of the state, aside from Mickey Mouse’s house.
Pictures of wind-whipped trees, wind-whipped people and wind-whipped buildings and power lines flood the papers’ pages, along with pictures of actual floods and witty headlines like “Miami Hit,” from Yedioth, which I guess is supposed to sound like the NBA’s Miami Heat (University of Miami Hurricanes too spot on? How about Irma gettin’ outta here? Or Irmageddon?).
Israel Hayom writes about some Israelis who stayed in Florida without evacuating, including the Horovitz family, whose video of a second birthday party in the dark went viral, according to the paper (though this writer was unable to find the video anywhere outside of Israel Hayom, which also incorrectly places the Fort Lauderdale family in Miami).
“We’re going through very scary days, but that won’t stop us from celebrating Yaheli’s birthday. Even the little party in the dark was enjoyable, and he’ll certainly never forget it,” Avital Horovitz tells the paper. “These are not easy days, the supermarkets are empty, there were fights over bottles of water and the gas stations are filled with people in hysterics. There are a million and a half people here without power, a lot of people evacuated from their homes and we don’t even know how our backyard looks. The winds are strong and the rains pounding. My husband has a business on the beach and we have no idea how it is doing.”
Sometimes hurricanes can take down a business, and sometimes corruption can. Yedioth plays up the arrest of supermarket mogul Rami Levy over suspected tax fraud having to do with a mall and Haaretz leads off its pages with two other stories about alleged corruption, one reporting that Netanyahu tried to install his friend Ari Harow as the head of Channel 10, when it was bought by another friend, Len Blavatnik.
The other lead story claims that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan ignored a district prosecutor, when he brought up suspicions of funny business in a case involving Haifa Chemicals.
The paper reports that Eitan Lederer blew a whistle when it seemed the government was making decision that favored Haifa Chemicals for suspicious reasons, but the investigative powers-that-be refused to act. “I cannot find an innocent explanation for the overall picture described. I fear that the state officials I’ve mentioned, or at least some of them, are acting out of invalid considerations that raise suspicions of ethical violations,” the paper reports Lederer wrote in a letter. “Although I don’t have an evidentiary basis to prove criminal violations, I think we cannot close our eyes to this behavior and must examine it before advancing a cabinet decision on the matter.”
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