Open skies, closed airport

Don’t forget your passports, because Israel’s airlines are about to take everyone for a ride with a general strike in protest of an Open Skies agreement with the European Union. The agreement would allow European airlines to operate unrestricted from Israeli airports, creating more competition against native carriers. (Surprisingly, none of the papers draw parallels between the Open Skies agreement and the cellphone reform which drastically reduced costs for consumers last year.)

Maariv reports that airline workers on Friday protested outside the homes of Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, charging that the deal would harm their jobs. El Al, Israel’s national airline, pushed 17 flights forward Saturday night, leaving Ben-Gurion International Airport packed to the gills and prompting El Al to muster all its employees to help manage the crowds.

The paper explains, however, that the bottom line for the rest of the country should the Open Skies agreement be signed would be cheaper flights to more destinations.

In a last-ditch attempt to sway Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and forestall the agreement’s signing, Histadrut labor union chief Ofer Eini penned an “urgent missive” to Netanyahu Saturday night, according to Israel Hayom. He implored Netanyahu to refrain from “making a difficult and destructive historic decision” by agreeing to opening Israel’s airports to European airlines.

The labor conglomerate threatened to shut down the country’s airports, ports and trains should the government refuse to reconsider. “Our aim at the moment is to enter negotiations to prevent the strike entirely,” the Histadrut told the paper. (Alas and alack, their effort was in vain, and the strike began Sunday morning.)

Yedioth Ahronoth reports that an internal Transportation Ministry memo indicated that should the Open Skies agreement get pushed through by the government, El Al would go bankrupt.

“The authors of the document, parts of which were leaked on Channel 10 the night before, among other things tried to deal with the question of how the state would behave should El Al collapse,” the paper writes. The three foreseeable outcomes were a) it would be bought out, b) the government would bail it out, c) the government would turn a blind eye and let it crumble and its market share be gobbled up by competitors.

The paper also features interviews with several Israelis whose flight plans were disrupted on account of the threat of an airline strike. Needless to say, none of them was pleased at the prospect of flights being canceled.

Concerning the strike, Shalom Yerushalmi writes in Maariv that Eini is in a bind. On the one hand the Israeli public, “which has a deep sentiment for El Al” — or so Yerushalmi claims — may back the aviation strike, but it may also support the prospect of cheaper tickets.

“Is it worth wasting all of the union’s ammunition now, before the budget is voted on by the government? Yea, the public is unprepared to support endless strikes, from which it will only suffer.”

In Israel Hayom, Haim Shain writes that he sees no problem with the Open Skies agreement and the prospect of cheaper tickets at the expense of the Israeli airlines, and argues that this decision is instrumental for determining the character of the new government. “The result of the [cabinet] vote will prove to the citizens of Israel whether the skies above them are open [to competition] or whether there’s nothing new under the sun, that which was is that which shall be,” he writes.

Shockingly, Haaretz, which ordinarily supports the workers of the world, tells the government to approve the Open Skies deal “for the good of the passengers.”

“Opposition to Open Skies exemplifies the narrow interests of a specific industry. At best, because it’s certainly possible for competition to bring efficiency, forcing the Israeli companies to improve their management — at which they don’t excel. But even if El Al and its little sisters, Arkia and Israir, are correct in their argument that the agreement is bad for the airline companies, El Al is not Israel. For the State of Israel and its citizens, this is a good agreement,” its editorial opines.

Second fiddle to the airline story is the Boston bomber suspect’s thrilling standoff with the police Friday night and his eventual capture. Say what you want about the Israeli press, but by waiting until Sunday to report Friday’s news it avoided misreporting on the Boston Marathon bombing (*cough* CNN, Fox, AP, Boston Globe *cough*).

Haaretz asks whether it is a case of “Terror in America or American psycho?”

“If the objective of terrorism is to scare people and influence governments, the Chechen brothers succeeded,” it writes. Its editor and senior columnist Amir Oren writes that when it boils down to Big Brother surveillance of America’s street and the privacy of its individuals, “despite the risks, the scales tend towards public order and safety.”

“Had there been no cameras, in this case mostly commercially owned; at Lord & Taylor, the race track, and at the 7-Eleven to which Dzhokar went to stock up on supplies, the police’s work would have been near impossible.”