Rage against the machinations

There’s a popular meme, which has only grown more popular in recent years for obvious reasons, which shows a dog sipping coffee in a room on fire, convincing himself that everything is fine.

The idea that you can ignore or be distracted from bad or inconvenient news is not a new one, but it comes at readers full force when looking at the Hebrew print media landscape on Tuesday, a day after President Reuven Rivlin tore into the government for going overboard in efforts to defend the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from prosecution in two alleged graft cases.

In two of Israel’s major dailies — Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz — the Rivlin speech, and Netanyahu’s own angry attack on critics and the media, makes major news, with Haaretz adding to it by reporting as well on possible criminal suspicions against Netanyahu’s staunchest coalition defender.

Israel Hayom meanwhile, the de facto media organ of Netanyahu and his Likud party, buries coverage of the speeches (and comes out much more sympathetic to the prime minister), instead leading off with news that Israel is in the midst of creating new regulations that will allow the deportation of migrants back to Africa.

One could easily argue that Israel Hayom is the dog, and the blaze raging around him is the dumpster fire happening in politics right now, especially around legislation that critics say would place the prime minister above the law and immunize him against prosecution, reportedly being held over the coalition’s head as a do-or-die measure.

At the same time, one could argue that the other papers are the dog, preferring to rage against the preening, posturing politics and immoral behavior by a few individuals while ignoring other problems that affect people’s day to day lives. People are being sent back to the places they risked their lives to escape, other people say they are afraid to leave their homes, and you want to talk about which guy at a podium is more statesmanlike?

With a front page headline reading as the Hebrew version of “Apres moi, le Deluge,” seemingly sounding a warning that a deposed leader may leave chaos in his wake, Yedioth is very much concerned with what politicians say and warn about each other. The paper, blatantly in the anti-Netanyahu camp, runs Rivlin’s speech in full as its top story, highlighting and pulling out poignant bits in which the president warns about dangers to Israeli democracy and society.

“About a decade ago I stood before one of the giants of Israeli law, Aharon Barak, and warned that the announcement of the constitutional revolution was actually a declaration of a coup. I said to him then, and I quote: ‘Any definition that changes the balance (of power), any act that expresses or even symbolizes stepping into the territory of another branch creates a reality of ‘chaotic democracy,’ of systemic and dangerous chaos,” reads one highlighted bit.

The coverage is accompanied by a flock of columns, each of them critical of Netanyahu and his “sourpuss speech,” as the paper terms his aggressive broadside against the media and other critics.

In one column, Sima Kadmon wears her sour pickle badge with pride.

“Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, I am sour. Like many many other sour citizens, who see where this government is taking us. We are soured when we see the dismissiveness you show toward the investigations against you, and while you still do everything to stop them, going as far as to have the coalition chair threaten to go to elections.”

Haaretz also plays the Rivlin comments high, and is also highly critical of Netanyahu, but not before breaking some very bad news about that coalition chair, namely that he is being investigated on suspicion of criminal activity. The paper hints that the suspicions relate to time Btan spent in debt while he was a local politician in Tel Aviv suburb Rishon Lezion.

“Before he became an MK, Bitan was a strong presence in Rishon Lezion. He was elected to the city council in 1988 and appointed deputy mayor in 2005. From 2008 to 2010, and then again from 2013, he chaired the local zoning board and held the city’s engineering portfolio.

During this period, Bitan also went into debt and took out loans in the “gray market. His wages were garnished and the Bailiff’s Office launched debt collection proceedings against him,” the paper reports. “Local papers reported on Bitan’s debts and there was speculation about how he managed to repay them.”

The paper also focuses on Bitan’s threat to take down the government if the coalition doesn’t back his PM immunity proposal, but lends most of its coverage to Rivlin’s Knesset speech.

Columnist Yossi Verter notes that if readers think Rivlin’s attack on the Netanyahu-led government was bad, they should see what he says in private. And though he sheds no light on what those private thoughts are, he predicts Israelis may get to see it out in the public in the future.

“When Rivlin calls the doings of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, which acts according to the commander’s evil spirit, a revolution against democracy, he’s basically making it clear that during the three and a half years he has left he has no intention of turning a blind eye. Participating in ceremonies is good. Approving ambassadorial credentials is important. But Rivlin sees his role as keeping the country from descending into an abyss,” he writes.

As is so often the case, Israel Hayom presents a mirror image, where Netanyahu’s words are the ones to pay attention to and Rivlin is just a gadfly buzzing around to little effect.

Columnist Anon Lord doesn’t call Rivlin an insect, but he does accuse him of being unstatesmanlike in his speech.

“Rivlin’s speech was the most political speech delivered by a president to the Knesset in Israel’s history,” he writes. “Rivlin saw the intensity of the fire directed at the government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the defense establishment and what he referred to as ‘the gatekeepers of democracy’ – the media and the Supreme Court – and he picked sides.”

In another column, Eran Bar-Tal repeats the same line of reasoning: that the fact that Israel is doing quite well economically puts Netanyahu in the right, and he has a point, at least in pointing out the country’s economic growth. Which is possibly why it proves a jarring juxtaposition (in the paper as whole, not side by side on the pages) with the paper’s lead story about a “significant step” against those the government and the tabloid lovingly call infiltrators and human rights groups call asylum seekers, and are likely a mix of economic and political refugees.

Calling the move a “Red card for infiltrators” in its headline, which is a strange analogy, the paper reports on a series of diplomatic deals with third party countries to take in the asylum seekers, thus overriding a court ruling against the country’s current deportation policies. The paper doesn’t say which countries, but notes that the deals were signed during meetings with African leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last month.

“During their meetings, Netanyahu amended Israel’s agreements with the leaders so as to allow illegal infiltrators to be deported from the country, forcibly if necessary. This would allow the state to continue its deportation procedures and constitutes an important tier in the government’s efforts to find a solution to the issue of migrants residing in the country illegally,” the paper reports. “The agreements with the African countries will allow Israel to implement various restrictions on migrants that refuse to leave the country, and will in effect serve to invalidate the restrictions imposed by the High Court on the matter. The amended agreements will allow the state to continue its deportation policy even more forcefully, and as a result, bring the country closer to a solution to the strategic problem presented by the migrants.”