Jerusalem in Ankara, Europe in the Knesset

After a month with terrorism taking center stage for the Israeli press, it’s a breath of fresh air for domestic economy issues to be on the front pages, with housing, natural gas and foreign funding of non-governmental organizations gaining prominence. Despite the stabbings, the show must go on.

But top story in Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz goes to the achievements of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which racked up an impressive victory and a clear plurality in the parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Erdogan’s ruling party was stymied from forming a single party government in the June elections after a pro-democracy Kurdish party broke the electoral threshold and won 13% of the vote. Coalition negotiations in the intervening months failed to bring together a government.

Yedioth Ahronoth writes on the front page that Erdogan — who, as president, wasn’t running himself — “scared and won” by “warning of a civil war if the Kurds were strengthened, and droves flocked to the polls in order to support him.”

Sound familiar?

The paper calls him “almost a sultan” after his party “gambled big” on “an election campaign that was entirely a campaign of fear and incitement — according to which the party was the only one that could eliminate the wave of violence in the country, and only if it could rule on its own.” Israel Hayom employs the same tired sultan trope, pointing out that even though the AKP won big, Erdogan still lacks the supermajority needed to enact constitutional reforms which would solidify his political power.

“The gamble paid off,” though, its reporter in Ankara writes.

“The leaders of the AKP and President Erdogan didn’t open champagne bottles last night only because they’re religious [Muslims], but they have a lot of reasons to do so,” Haaretz’s reporter says.

With over 99% of the ballots counted, AKP won just shy of 50% of the vote, but not enough to rule on its own. The main opposition party won 25%. Haaretz calls it a “landslide victory” for the AKP, which is “on its way to 17 years in power.”

If you think Erdogan’s dirty political tactics sound strikingly similar to the run-up to Israel’s national elections in March 2015, you’re not alone. Smadar Peri calls the Turkish president’s campaign strategy “the winning method” and points out that just like the Israeli election, pollsters predicted wrong and got a “slap in the face” from the AKP.

“Just like with us, when Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu warned that ‘the Arabs are rushing in droves to the polls,’ Erdogan warned of a flood of Kurds,” she writes, drawing parallel after parallel between Israeli politics and those of Turkey. “Just like with us, Turkey inflated the election threshold in order to torpedo victory for a large minority,” who nonetheless made it into parliament.

“You have to admit: Erdogan, like Netanyahu, has charisma. Both found the patent to speak with the masses and distribute guarantees,” she says. Had Erdogan lost, he and his associates would have been plagued by corruption investigations, but now “they received immunity until 2019.”

She says it’s hard for the West to understand the Turkish voter, but “yesterday tens of millions demonstrated that they prefer the tough style, that militancy and intimidation actually soothes them.”

“Sound familiar to you?”

On the home front, a proposed law by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked to force representatives of “leftist organizations to wear identifying tags in the Knesset” has Haaretz outraged. The bill being pushed by the Jewish Home lawmaker would require NGOs who receive foreign funding to denote that they receive money from abroad on all correspondence with government officials, and wear tags in parliament indicating where their organization gets its funding.

Haaretz points out that most of the groups that would be affected by the law are left-wing organizations. Violators, it notes, are subject to fines of NIS 29,000.

After five months of gridlock, the Israeli government is on its way to passing a gas deal, but only after a quick cabinet shuffle, Israel Hayom reports. Economy Minister Aryeh Deri stepped down from his post and will be made the minister for the periphery, Negev and Galilee. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking over the economy post temporarily, and it may be given to Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, the paper says.

Deri has refused to sign off on anti-trust legislation for the multi-billion dollar gas deal, but no longer wants to stand in the way of the agreement, which is expected to inject cash into the government’s coffers.

In an Israel Hayom op-ed, Hezi Sternlicht calls opposition lawmakers’ criticisms of the gas deal “texts from the theater of the absurd.” What’s the problem with foreign investment in Israeli industry, he asks, “in opening an outlet for income of hundreds of millions of shekels in tax money for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren?” The hindrance of the offshore gas fields’ development he blames on “swinish socialism” which bogged down “almost the entire process with innumerable grimy mechanisms left behind by the Mapai [party, predecessor to the Labor party].”

He says Israel could have cashed in on the natural gas before the Egyptians found their own subterranean goldmine if there had been less intervention by the government and planning authorities.