Look who’s (not) talking

It’s not the stories that newspapers have to cover that define who they are, but, often, the stories they choose to cover. On Tuesday morning, talks between the US and Israel over a multi-billion dollar defense aid package are the subject of the only major story to make all three front pages (even the Cleveland Cavaliers’ historic NBA victory fails to make it to Israel Hayom, about which this writer shall reserve judgment).

But it’s the other stories each paper highlights that reveal their true colors. Lefty broadsheet Haaretz plays up reports that Israel is diverting water away from Palestinians over Ramadan, populist tabloid Yedioth Ahronoth toots its own horn over a plan to subsidize summer camps, and government mouthpiece Israel Hayom actually sticks with the defense aid talks, but makes it into a strange concoction of “look at these natty new F-35s we’re going to get from the Americans,” “Look at these new females we are making into pilots,” and “Look at how great our prime minister is managing the military moolah negotiations.”

Despite the fact that the plane is American and is being bought with money given to Israel from America, the paper puts the words “Israeli pride” on its front page alongside a picture of the F-35, which is kind of like when my kid is proud that he used my money to buy “me” that Lego set he really wanted, for my birthday. The paper reports that Tuesday will see Israel receive the first of 33 F-35s it ordered, at a ceremony in the US. But much of the reporting focuses on the fact that among the new pilots graduating flying school this week are four people with double X chromosomes, bring the total number to 46. The army, the paper reports, has made a concerted effort to put more women in the cockpit in recent years.

“In the past only someone who requested flight school was given a chance to be placed, but today the air force actively seeks out girls about to enlist in the security forces who fit and invites them to try out. It also plans conferences for females about to enlist to get them to come to [flight] school,” the paper reports.

On the actual defense talks, the paper also sets itself apart, mostly ignoring the pressure being put on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign the damn deal already highlighted by the other two papers and instead running the headline “The agreement over defense aid from the US – in the prime minister’s hands,” a quote from Netanyahu’s bureau.

The actual body of the story contains the rest of the quote “and it still hasn’t been accepted,” reporting that the statement came in response to pressure from Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and a senior Israeli source seen as representing Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman.

That pressure makes up the focus of the story in the other two papers. Haaretz notes high up that pressure on Netanyahu to end the drawn-out talks has been going on for months, but only now broke into the open.

Well, kind of in the open. While Kahlon made his comments publicly, Liberman, normally not press shy, was officially mum while on a trip to Washington. Instead, the papers (including The Times of Israel) play his game and quote “a senior Israeli official” whose request for anonymity frankly stretches the bounds of what journalists should be asked to do, and papers don’t seem particularly keen on trying too hard to hide who the official is.

“Liberman refused to be interviewed after his meeting in Washington, but a senior source said …,” writes Yedioth, intentionally juxtaposing the two.

In Haaretz, op-ed writer Tal Niv writes about another man who used to play the same game when he was defense minister: Ehud Barak. Niv sings Barak’s praises after he joined Moshe Ya’alon, another ex-defense minister, in bashing Netanyahu, and crowns the next several months as the “summer of Barak.”

“Barak can become prime minister again because he represents the way Israelis want to see themselves: militaristic, financially successful, straight-talking and not too spoiled,” she writes. “What’s important is not just Barak’s frank, smart-alecky and charming Israeliness, but his comments last week about a leader who has ‘gone off the rails.’ It’s hard to believe that his decision to say that the roots of fascism have taken hold in Israel was made on the spur of the moment. It was an important, significant and frightening statement. Such words must be given weight.”

Whether it will be the summer of Barak or the summer of love remains to be seen, but one thing that’s for certain is that it will be the summer of camp, like countless summers before it, though this one will be special, according to Yedioth, since it will include subsidized camps for children in outlying towns and poor neighborhoods.

The paper, which has backed a parents’ protest seeking such a measure for several weeks, is over the moon with itself (and the “dozens of parents” it said protested) for making it into a reality, crediting its own reporting over gaps in pricing for camps that put them out of reach of poorer kids.

“After the Yedioth expose, [Interior Minister Aryeh Deri] wrote a letter to all the mayors in the country and asked them to sign up in favor of the parents and bring down camp prices, and indeed many mayors reported on discounts following the protests, between 10 percent and 36 percent,” the paper reports.

In the end, though, Deri pushed through a reform that places a cap on how much a city-run camp can cost and doling out discounts to parents depending on how many children they have and where they live.

While life is getting easier for some, it’s getting harder for others, writes Haaretz, which uses its front page to break open reporting that has been swirling in the Arabic press for weeks (and largely discounted by Israelis) that Israel is cutting off water to Palestinians during Ramadan. Reporter/advocate Amira Hass cites Palestinian sources saying that Israel has diverted water from Palestinian villages in order to keep reservoirs in settlements full and maintain water pressure for both settlers and Palestinians. Israelis, meanwhile, blame the Palestinians for not upgrading their water infrastructure, thus creating the shortage, turning the story into an elaborate he said, she said. What everyone agrees on, though, is that there is not enough water to go around.

“In the Salfit region of the West Bank and in three villages east of Nablus, homes have had no running water for more than two weeks. Factories there have been shut down, gardens and plant nurseries have been ruined and animals have died of thirst or been sold to farmers outside the affected areas,” Hass writes. “People have been improvising by drawing water from agricultural wells, or by buying mineral water or paying for water brought in large tankers for household use and to water their livestock. But purchasing water that way is extremely expensive.”