Let’s all take a deep breath

The Hebrew press has been falling all over itself trying to figure out if and when the coalition will fall. With no new news coming before the papers were put to bed, each paper stakes out its own claim on if there will be early elections and, if so, who would have caused them.

Israel Hayom’s front page quotes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu placing the blame on his coalition partners if the government falls: “If you don’t want new elections, stop fighting and subverting [the coalition].” But Bibi wasn’t done yet. He also called the recent crisis in the coalition an attempted “putsch” and called on the coalition members to “act seriously and solve the crisis.”

“This insanity cannot continue,” writes columnist Dan Margalit, referring to the constant teetering on new elections. He says the coalition partners must take a long hard look and ask themselves if their causes will bring them extra votes if they bring down the government. Party leaders must round up their members and decide how to move forward, toward elections or to stay in the government. Either way, this wavering between crisis and election cannot continue, he says. “The damage isn’t only immediate, it’s long-lasting.”

Haaretz’s headline reveals a slightly different view from Israel Hayom’s, “Bibi to Likud leaders: Prepare for new elections.” While the headline sounds definitive, the prime minister’s full quote was, “Prepare for new elections, in the hope we won’t get there.” Netanyahu himself seems to feel they might not get there, canceling a meeting yesterday to deal with the crisis after Lapid abandoned his attempts to set up an alternative coalition.

Yossi Verter takes a crack at trying to explain why this crisis reared its head and also why it won’t go anywhere. This crisis showed two basic facts, Verter writes. The first is that none of the coalition leaders – Lapid, Livni, Liberman, or Bennett — wants elections. The other fact is the political issues that are the “causes” are actually just the symptoms of the coalition malaise. The real causes of the crisis are “deep suspicions, lack of faith, and mutual loathing” between coalition partners.

Over in Yedioth Ahronoth, the paper dedicates an article to Tzipi Livni’s opposition to the nation-state bill that is being pushed by Netanyahu. On Sunday, Livni held up the law in committee, outraging Likud proponents of the legislation. Livni has offered up an amended bill in its place, one that calls Israel a “Jewish and democratic state that is based on Israel’s Declaration of Independence.” The bill goes on to spell out “equal rights for all of its citizens.”

As if the coalition wasn’t facing enough pressure, the revelation of an EU document that could impose sanctions on Israel seemed to focus on Europe’s growing frustration with the impasse on the peace process. But as Haaretz writes, the document was a “hypothetical working paper” and never was raised at the meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday. The document focused on sanctioning European companies that do business with companies in the occupied territories. It also included a provision that would prohibit European diplomats from meeting or speaking with public figures who advocate against a two-state solution.

Dirty air

The coalition crisis grabbed the most space in papers, but Yedioth dedicates its first two pages to the Israeli cities with the worst air pollution. A new figure has been released about how to measure air pollution in a city by measuring the yearly tonnage of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) per kilometer.

The top three polluted cities in Israel are Haifa, Ramat Hasharon, and then Tel Aviv (Jerusalem comes in at number 14). The causes of the pollution are pretty straightforward: industrial zones, traffic, and, somewhat surprisingly, gas stations (whose nozzles give off a lot of VOCs). It’s not clear under whose jurisdiction it falls to clean up the air. The paper writes that Tel Aviv created a plan two years ago to improve air quality in the city but it has been stuck in a tug of war between city hall and the Environment Ministry.

Murder or suicide?

The death of bus driver Yusuf Hassan al-Ramouni has increased the already high tensions in Jerusalem, as Palestinians claim the Arab bus driver was murdered, while Israeli authorities ruled it a suicide. Haaretz reports that a Palestinian pathologist who sat in on the autopsy said that some of the traditional characteristics of death by hanging weren’t present, leading him to believe it was murder. A colleague of Ramouni said the spot where he was found hanging was a staircase where “it would be impossible to hang yourself alone.”

In another part of Jerusalem, Yehudah Glick met with Chief Rabbi David Lau and spoke for the first time about his attempted assassination. Israel Hayom relates Glick’s version of the attack. The would-be assassin “told me, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but you’re enemy of al-Aqsa’ and then fired, boom, boom.”

Lau told Glick that he had prayed for his recovery ceaselessly. Doctors are optimistic that Glick will be released in a week or two and expect him to make a full recovery.