Is it snowing yet?

Ever since snow was forecast earlier in the week for Jerusalem, the Israeli press has been as giddy as schoolchildren at the possibility of seeing the golden city blanketed in white.

Only one thing spoiled the papers’ party, though: snow hadn’t fallen by the time they were put to bed Tuesday night. So instead they rehash the same forecasts and stories that have led for the past three days.

The front pages are all variations on this theme, with Israel Hayom going with the bland “The day of the storm,” Yedioth Ahronoth with “The cold and closure,” referring to the expected shutdown of the capital once the snow arrives, and Haaretz’s front page going descriptive rather than snappy: “Municipalities are ready for the peak of today’s storm; Safed is blocked, the roads to Jerusalem are expected to close.”

Even though early Wednesday morning there wasn’t any snow in Jerusalem, Israel Hayom reports that Israeli schoolchildren still had something to celebrate: no school. Not wanting to take any chances, or have a repeat of late 2013’s devastating snowstorm, the city preemptively canceled school, as did some northern communities, in preparation for the storm.

While the capital and its residents were preparing for the storm, no one told the supermarkets to get ready. Yedioth reports that the city is experiencing shortages of bread, eggs, milk, water, and space heaters as people bought out entire supplies at stores. As one resident told the paper, “Last year we were stuck at home for five days, so this year we’re buying enough to last.”

The other storm

There is another storm brewing in Israel but it won’t arrive until March: the elections. Haaretz’s front page reveals the results of another poll that show little change at the top but that Yair Lapid is gaining, partially at the expense of Moshe Kahlon’s neophyte Kulanu party. According to the poll, Labor-Hatnua would get 23 seats, Likud 22, Jewish Home 16, Yesh Atid 12, and Kulanu nine. In previous polls, Kahlon’s party had as many as 12 seats, while Yesh Atid had 11. The paper speculates that Lapid’s recent media campaign is driving his message home while Kahlon’s silence is hurting his numbers.

Yedioth also offers up a few pages of political coverage that mostly consist of opinion pieces against Netanyahu. The paper does report on an interview the PM gave to Channel 2 news, and its headline sums up Netanyahu’s attitude: “It’s not me, it’s them.” It basically boiled down to Netanyahu blaming the Olmert government for high housing prices, and Yair Lapid for not lowering them. Lapid responded to the interview, saying of Netanyahu, “He’s panicking.”

In one of the op-eds against Netanyahu, former Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin insists: “We deserve answers.” He accuses the government of sweeping tough questions about Operation Protective Edge under the rug and abandoning residents of Gaza border towns. Diskin asks why Israel didn’t deal then with the tunnel threat during 2012’s Operation Pillar of Defense, when a large contingent of reservists was called up. He also asks why in Operation Protective Edge Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ya’alon were willing to agree to a ceasefire before the ground operation when there was a clear threat of a strategic tunnel terror attack against Kerem-Shalom.

He lambasts the IDF’s decision to withdraw troops from communities near Gaza. He wonders if Naftali Bennett and Uri Ariel would also support withdrawing troops from Jerusalem or West Bank settlements, but it seems from his question that he doubts they would.

Corruption and court

Over in Israel Hayom, Dan Margalit writes about the corruption scandal in Yisrael Beytenu, saying that it is bigger than anything Aryeh Deri or Ehud Olmert did. He argues that while everyone involved deserves to be given the benefit of the doubt, the party as a whole should be presumed guilty. He writes that if Liberman didn’t know what was going on in his own party (which is very convenient for him), it would be a massive failure on his part.

The Yisrael Beytenu probe isn’t the only corruption story in Wednesday’s Israel Hayom, as the paper reports that police want retired Labor minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer to stand trial over a slew of corruption allegations. Included in the case against him are charges of accepting bribes, money laundering, fraud and breach of trust. Ben-Eliezer lawyer’s said his client vowed to “fight for his reputation despite his complex medical condition.” Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog said of the development: “I trust law enforcement to do their work faithfully… Personally, I wish Fuad [Ben-Eliezer] be foundinnocent and remain in good health.”

Controversial MK Hanin Zoabi may also be hauled in front of a judge. Haaretz reports that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has decided to indict her on charges of inciting violence and insulting a public official. The charges stem form an incident in July during which Zoabi allegedly insulted Arab police officers and incited violence against them and other Arab cops. Zoabi’s attorney, Hassan Jabareen, said that the state’s prosecutor doesn’t usually indict politicians for statements made in the heat of public debate. “If an indictment is issued, the prosecutor’s office will have to explain to the court its discrimination against MK Zoabi, as opposed to dozens of similar and even more extreme cases, where no indictments were ever issued,” he said.