Mr. Lapid and Mrs. Cohen

Simon and Garfunkel had Mrs. Robinson, Robin Williams had Mrs. Doubtfire and now Israel’s brand spanking new finance minister has his own missus, Mrs. Cohen from Hadera — and boy has she turned out to be a cruel mistress.

The fictional Riki Cohen featured prominently in a Sunday Facebook post by Lapid in which he spoke of bringing the plight of Israel’s middle class to the forefront of his agenda with the Finance Ministry staff, and on Tuesday morning, the first paper after the Passover holiday, the 37-year-old teacher features prominently in three of the four major Hebrew dailies. (Only Maariv couldn’t give two shakes about poor old Mrs. Cohen. Perhaps they are still partial to the fictional Mr. Buzaglo, forever serving jail sentences for the crime of not being a prominent public figure.)

Israel Hayom and Yedioth Aharonoth both mention the fact that with a NIS 20,000 salary between Mrs. Cohen and her husband, even without the ability to afford a mortgage, she’s not exactly representative of most middle class Israelis and in fact is in the second-highest decile of money-makers, a fact which a number of other politicians latched onto. (Unmentioned is the fact the Mrs. Cohen also hails from the priestly caste and could enjoy the finest meats from sacrificial offerings in Temple times.)

In Yedioth, the Labor Party’s Isaac Herzog is quoted as saying that Lapid should worry about those who would kill to be in Mrs. Cohen’s shoes. “There’s a lot more Mrs. Cohens in this country that make NIS 5,000, and with their partner maybe NIS 10,000, and they give no less to the state, send their kids to the army and barely make it. Lapid plans to hurt them… finance minister, wake up: The middle class is there.”

In Israel Hayom, Hezi Sternlicht writes that Lapid should drop Mrs. Cohen and her middle class like a piece of matza the day after Passover and be everybody’s finance minister. “The central problem here is asking the Finance Ministry to stop working on the state budget and to concentrate on the middle class. We thought you were the finance minister also — pay attention, here’s a spoiler — for the poor. And even the rich. The finance minister is responsible for the whole public coffer and not just specific sectors.”

Haaretz puts some teeth into the backlash against Lapid by running a laundry list of the various cuts and reforms Lapid will be making to the state budget, which may end up hurting Mrs. Cohen, Mrs. Levi and even Miss Frizzle and her magical school bus. (We imagine Mr. Buzaglo will continue to receive his three hots and a cot.) Among the planned cuts: the VAT exemption for fruits and vegetables, the tax exemption on higher education savings funds, a 1 percent jump in taxes for those making over NIS 14,000, a raise of VAT to 18%, a NIS 4 billion cut in the children’s services budget, NIS 4.5 billion less for defense and NIS 5 billion less for public services.

Uncut remain salaries for Israel’s august lawmakers, who according to Haaretz are working diligently to, in the paper’s words, make a mockery out of the legislative system by bringing up more bills than you can shake a stick at. In just a few weeks, the 19th Knesset has brought forward a whopping 849 bills, as MKs race for the title of most accomplished lawgiver. Labor MK Avishay Braverman notes that it’s not necessarily a good thing: “In the last few years, MKs have become accustomed to the idea that the main criterion for excellence is the number of bills submitted, and how many made it into the press. Is that good for the Knesset? For the state? The answer is ‘no’ with a capital ‘N.’”

The story also notes that many bills are newly submitted do-overs that didn’t make the cut last time around, when 4,600 bills were submitted in just under four years of work.

Partying with the Moroccans

Maariv, apparently just getting around to reading the news of the past year, screams across its front page that the Syrian civil war has spread to Lebanon, with fighting between Sunnis and Alawites raging in the land of the cypress.

More interesting, though, is the paper’s focus on the Mimouna festival, which has turned into an opportunity for politicians to win some brownie, or actually mufleta, points with the large Moroccan community. Up in the Moroccan-heavy town of Beit She’an, Maariv followed former foreign minister David Levy, who many think will be the next president now that Reuven Rivlin has been shunted aside.

“He’s been out of politics for several years, but he’s still sharp as a blade, an expert with knowledge of security and diplomatic matters,” Ahikam Moshe David writes. “He himself was careful yesterday to say to anyone that came to the city’s Mimouna tent that he ‘is not dealing with that,’ and ‘now is not the time,’ but around him it was clear to everyone: David Levy is running strong for the presidency.”

Levy wasn’t the only one chowing down on North African pancakes. Yedioth writes that Hollywood star Gerard Butler made a trip to Israel to celebrate Mimouna and promote his new movie “Olympus Has Fallen.” The paper notes that the Scottish actor Morroc-and-rolled together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, and Bar Refaeli. Mrs. Cohen from Hadera, natch, was not invited.

‘Jailed X’

In Haaretz, op-ed writer Uri Misgav comes to the defense of Ben Zygier, who he says should not be called “Prisoner X” but rather “Jailed X” since he was never sentenced to prison. Accordingly, he says his name should not be dragged through the mud, as it was recently when news reports came out alleging that he made mistakes that cost Israel dearly over personal matters. “It cannot continue like this. Ben Zygier is dead and buried, but the jailed X affair is alive and continuing. It’s come time for a serious and independent investigation.”