Obama’s words fail him, panic ensues

US President Barack Obama’s muddled comments Tuesday regarding Iran’s nuclear program caused a minor uproar in Israel, and the local papers are still trying to make sense of the American leader’s words.

During an interview with NPR, Obama appeared to admit that Tehran would be able to build an atomic bomb at will after 13 years under the emerging nuclear deal between Iran and the so-called P5+1 world powers. However, later statements by the White House denied that the president had acknowledged such a fact.

Not surprisingly, the country’s two largest papers, Yedioth Ahronoth and Israel Hayom, lead with the president’s statements, both warning that even Obama now admits Iran is only a stone’s throw away from acquiring deadly nuclear arms capabilities.

However, while Yedioth makes a point of noting the White House’s clarification of Obama’s words — State Department acting spokesperson Marie Harf later explained that the president was describing a scenario in which an agreement was not achieved — the important update by the US government is suspiciously lacking from Israel Hayom’s front page.

The daily, which is famously sympathetic to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is often highly critical of Obama’s Iran policies, further reports that the US president now faces trouble at home as well, as a growing number of Democratic Party members have begun to express doubts about the deal.

The front-page report in Haaretz on Obama’s NPR interview is much more nuanced, with writer Barak Ravid covering the president’s comments in intricate detail and explaining the US leader’s views on Iran’s nuclear capabilities in light of the White House’s later clarification.

According to Ravid, “Obama’s statements intended to demonstrate the difference between the situation today, where Iran’s breakout time stands at two-to-three months, and the situation after the deal, where, for a minimum of 10 years, Iran’s breakout time would be one year.”

Breakout time refers to the period necessary for Iran to build a bomb should it decide to pursue one full bore — in other words, how long the rest of the world would have to stop it from producing a nuclear weapon.

In internal politics, Haaretz reports that Netanyahu’s Likud party is working hard to assure that the country’s budget will be put to the vote once every two years, instead of the current situation — in which the government must approve the budget annually. The step, according to Haaretz reporter Jonathan Lis, is an attempt by the Likud to secure Netanyahu’s position as the country’s leader in the coming years and provide his ruling party with enough leeway to head the government in a stable manner.

In Yedioth, a one-page article is dedicated to a new report by the British Ministry of the Interior, which determines that the situation in Eritrea is not as dangerous as was previously assumed and, therefore, migrants from the North African dictatorship will no longer be classified as asylum seekers.

Eritrea, ruthlessly ruled by a single party, had previously enforced a law under which army draft-dodgers are subject to capital punishment. Since military service in Eritrea is a life-long duty, many of the state’s citizens have fled the country in recent years. However, the British report claims that the laws in Eritrea have been relaxed over the past few months, and that draft-dodgers currently do not have to fear execution.

Yedioth reporter Daniel Bitani notes that the new ruling by the British government may be used as evidence by Israeli lawmakers rallying to transport African migrants out of the country’s borders. Human rights organizations, as well as Eritrean refugees living abroad, have heavily disputed the findings of the British report, asserting that the African country is still far from safe.

Back in Haaretz, reporter Oded Yaron brings us a story on Hezbollah’s apparent attempts to cyber-spy on Israel, Canada, the US, Russia, and Britain. The suspected case of espionage by the Lebanese Shiite organization was first published in a report by Israeli cyber-security company Check Point, which recorded suspicious activity by “well-organized” hackers in 2012.

The hackers attempted to track numerous private and public targets using a program called “Explosive,” the report states, adding that the cyber-attackers made use of Iranian devices, therefore suggesting that Hezbollah, which is backed by Tehran, was involved in the crime.

And finally, Yedioth’s always-amusing back-page article discusses an upcoming radio mega-event, the crowning of Israel’s No. 1 Mediterranean music hit of the past 40 years. According to the paper, the popular music style burst onto the Israeli scene in the spring of 1975 with the release of Ahuva Ozeri’s first album, and has since become the most played genre on Israel’s radio stations.

For some reason, Yedioth seems to equate Mediterranean music with Oriental and Arabic-influenced melodies. Nevertheless, on Israel’s Independence day (April 23), lovers of the all the aforementioned genres will get a chance to finally rank their favorite song of all time in a 4-hour marathon of twangy tunes, set to be broadcast on Radio Tel Aviv, Radio Haifa, Radio South and Radio Galei Yisrael. Yalla, Hafla! (Let’s go, party time!)