Neighborhood bullies and familiar news

The list of top stories covered by Tuesday’s Hebrew papers reads like a jumbled collection of regurgitated news from the past few weeks, months and years: a gangland shooting in the center of an Israeli city; controversial statements by Arab MKs and a heated response from the prime minister; tensions between the White House and Jerusalem; and new details on a sex scandal involving a high-ranking IDF officer.

With no terror attacks to report, the tabloids choose the most emotive of the pickings to lead their front pages, highlighting the shooting of the wife of a mobster who turned state’s evidence to point the finger on his fellow mafiosos.

An 30-year-old Israeli woman was shot dead in front of her three young children on Beersheba’s Jerusalem Boulevard on Monday evening.

Police said the victim was the wife of an imprisoned member of a criminal organization who testified against the organization. Police say they are exploring the possibility that the killing was an act of revenge against the husband, as well as the possibility that the husband ordered the shooting.

“Murdered in front of her children,” reads Yedioth Aharonoth next to the photo of the shot-up car and a blurred image of the unnamed woman and her incarcerated husband.

Israel Hayom leads with a similarly themed headline, “The children screamed: They’ve murdered mom.”

With few details released by the police, both papers lead their reports on the story inside the papers with the same headlines as the front page.

An accompanying piece in Yedioth by “a well known figure in the criminal world” says that this latest killing, coming after a string of murders connected to criminal rings, crosses a line even for the most hardened of Israel’s underworld.

“The lowest of the low carried out this murder of the wife of a state witness but unfortunately we knew that this type of thing could happen. The writing was on the wall,” they write. “What happened here crosses all lines and represents an escalation that needs to light up all the red lights possible for both the police and the state prosecution.”

Unusually, the latest controversy regarding Arab Knesset members does not feature prominently across all the Hebrew papers.

“Netanyahu to Arab MKs: ‘In favor of Hezbollah? Have you gone mad?'” reads the modest-sized headline across the top of Israel Hayom’s front page, referring to an announcement by two factions of the Joint (Arab) List in support of the group.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out Monday at Arab MKs who condemned Gulf Arab states for blacklisting the Lebanese Shiite organization as a terror group. Hezbollah is openly committed to destroying Israel, and has an estimated 100,000-plus rockets and missiles aimed at the Jewish state.

“No, they haven’t gone mad,” writes columnist Israel Hayom Dan Margalit in response to Netanyahu’s question. “They have knowingly put themselves on the other side of the fence. Unfortunately, this was no mistake — it was a deliberate decision that aims to cut off all cooperation, good will and reconciliation attempts between Jews and Arabs along the Green Line,” he explains.

“The announcement made by the Balad and Hadash parties (both of which are part of the Joint List) has taught us that Israel must go over their heads in its efforts to build bridges with the Arab community. That is the best step to take,” he concludes.

Haaretz features the story on its front page, leading with the statements from the Balad and Hadash factions and then Netanyahu’s response second.

Reporters Jacky Khoury and Ofra Edleman give a detailed explanation of some of the motives behind the statements and the internal debate within Arab-Israeli society.

“The two parties’ statements follow pressure from party activists who have said that the Arab public cannot be divorced from the implications of the Gulf council and Arab League decisions. The involvement of Hezbollah in Syria has been polarizing Israeli Arab society, a segment of which supports Hezbollah’s operations while others vehemently oppose it,” they write. “It should be noted that despite the statements by Hadash and Balad, there are also those in the Arab Israeli community who don’t see eye-to-eye with them on the matter and there is a complex range of views even within the parties themselves, as there is among Palestinians and in the Arab world generally.”

But the story doesn’t make it to Yedioth Ahronoth’s front page or opinion page, instead appearing only on page 10 with a news report about the details of the announcement.

In honor of International Women’s day Yedioth features a series of articles and op-eds written by prominent women under the title “Women write Yedioth Ahronoth,” despite the vast majority of news articles being written, on the 364 other days of the year, by men. The front page features photos of three such influential females writing for the issue: Supreme Court President Miriam Naor; First Lady Nechama Rivlin; and visiting superstar British model Naomi Campbell.