Learning the power of my way or the highway

It was the Rolling Stones who said you can’t always get what you want, but perhaps they never tried issuing threats, walking out or just plain wishing really hard to get their way.

There’s a lot of magical thinking in the Hebrew press Tuesday morning, as papers fill their pages with tales of students and politicians thinking they can get their way by issuing ultimatums, along with excitement over new breast cancer research that they play up as a major breakthrough, despite evidence in their own pages that it is likely too early (or too late) for so much hoopla.

The first group using an ultimatum to get what it wants is high school students who were promising to skip classes Tuesday unless canceled end-of-year school trips were reinstated, in what has become a yearly ritual. Israel Hayom reports that some 350,000 students are expected to play hooky Tuesday, and may do so Wednesday as well if their demands are not met, after school trips were nixed as part of an ongoing labor dispute between a teachers’ union and the Education Ministry.

The students are also protesting an ongoing strike by driving test administrators, which is keeping many of them from getting their rides on — clearly a total downer on a sultry Tuesday when many will be forced to take a bus to the beach as part of their Very Serious Protest Action.

But lest anyone think the high schoolers are just a bunch of entitled whiners, student union head Eliav Batito attempts to set the record straight in nearly identical columns printed by Israel Hayom and Yedioth Ahronoth, (which could lead one to think that maybe kids should spend more time studying and less time on trips and protests if all they can muster is one person who can put together 400 cogent words.)

“We have decided to embark on this battle after we were left with no choice. Until now, 750,000 youths have been forgotten in the state of Israel, by different unions and by government ministries,” Batito writes in the Yedioth codex. “Students of Israel, I call on you to take part in this fight and not to go to class today. Our strength is in our unity; we will win this battle only if we work together and fight for our rights. Good luck!”

It’s not a surprise that students are using the our-way-or-nobody-plays tack when the country’s education minister is taking the same approach to coalition politics. Haaretz’s lead story reports that Jewish Home head Naftali Bennett is threatening to take his party and walk out of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition should Zionist Union enter the government and be given the Justice Ministry portfolio.

Why the fuss over one ministry? The paper notes that the nationalist Jewish Home party sees the role as key to stopping the Supreme Court from being a liberal bastion and being able to push through right-wing and nationalist measures.

“We see the justice portfolio as a significant issue that parallels changing the government guidelines, and not just a job. It’s not a personal issue. If they take justice away from us, we won’t sit in the coalition,” Bennett is quoted as saying by the paper, which also reports that Netanyahu believes his coalition could collapse as soon as this month if not bolstered by the Zionist Union.

Breast news ever?

But bringing Zionist Union into a unity government would be just a minor breakthrough compared to a discovery announced Monday that researchers have managed to unlock what they say is the full list of 93 breast cancer gene mutations, at least if the country’s tabloids are to be believed. While researchers say the development is key to finding a cure to the disease, it’s played up by the papers practically as if an actual cure has already been found.

Yedioth leads off with the front page headline “On the path to a cure for breast cancer,” and with the paper reporting that the disease strikes one in eight Israeli women, it’s little surprise there’s so much excitement.
But when the papers ask those women or those treating them how they feel, the reactions are a bit less sanguine.

“This breakthrough is very encouraging, but I assume it is less relevant for us sufferers, since it will take years until they find a cure,” Rishon Lezionite Sharon Meiri, 52, is quoted as telling Yedioth. “I’m trying to keep optimism to a minimum, since every few months there is a new breakthrough, even though nothing has yet led to a treatment that will help me.”

In Israel Hayom, Dr. Noa Ben Baruch similarly cautions that much of the excitement may be premature.

“The research excites me on a theoretical level, but not on a practical one. It would excite me a lot more to see a drug that makes a substantial difference, like Herceptin, which has meant the different between life and death for many sufferers,” she writes. “If one of these genes leads to a drug like that, there’s no doubt it would move me a lot more.”

In Haaretz, op-ed writer Iris Leal is also pessimistic about curing ills, not breast cancer but rather Netanyahu – whom she compares to a cancer-causing nuclear disaster – and the country under him – which she compares to a Golem monster, writing that should the prime minister decide to shift Israel’s course, he may find doing so is not so easy.

“We are no longer the civil society we were before the early 1990s. And when a society doesn’t know what it is, one can’t even guess how it will behave,” she writes. “Netanyahu is like Chernobyl – a major disaster whose long-term effects are unknown. But one thing’s for sure: When he is forced to take action, he’ll discover that the society he corrupted has internalized his messages and will view anyone who attempts to bring peace – including him – as the enemy.”