Schoolhouse fire to jailhouse rock

The sentencing of two brothers from Jerusalem to two years in prison for torching a bilingual school that promotes coexistence in the capital makes the news Wednesday, but where it comes in each paper is telling.

Haaretz runs the story of the Twitto brothers’ jail sentence prominently on the front page, above the fold, whereas Israel Hayom shunts the issue to the bottom of Page 21 below a story on an Israeli tourist killed in a parachuting accident in Switzerland.

Yedioth Ahronoth gives the story a meager sidebar article on Page 26, but at least notes that the two brothers left the courtroom with “smiles and song” and no sign of contrition.

“It was worth the price,” one brother said, leaving the courtroom.

Haaretz reports that the third man accused in the incident, Yitzhak Gabai, was still on trial. It also reports that despite the attack, there’s been a 10 percent jump in registration at the school.

After a verbal joust between Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and reservist Maj. Gen. Yohanan Locker over the latter’s proposals to reduce the military’s budget, Ya’alon refused to attend a meeting with Locker called by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, Yedioth Ahronoth reports.

Sources in the Knesset tell the paper that Netanyahu, who was forced to meet separately with Locker and IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, was seething with rage at Ya’alon. Ya’alon reportedly told reservist generals that so long as he’s defense minister, the measures proposed by Locker — which include slashing benefits and pensions for career officers — wouldn’t be enacted.

Eisenkot told the prime minister that the proposals pitched by Locker’s committee would, if implemented, damage the motivation of career soldiers and drive away quality officers from the IDF, the paper reports.

Meanwhile, across the pond, senior Obama administration officials tell Haaretz that Congress’s rejection of the Iran nuclear deal would lead to a “catastrophe” which would isolate the United States and harm its ability to defend Israel. “It’s not clear to us why this thing (Congress rejecting the deal) is good for Israel,” the anonymous officials tell the paper.

They go on to say that they are of the opinion that Netanyahu isn’t interested in any nuclear deal with Iran, except for an impossible scenario in which Tehran folds on all of its positions and doesn’t get sanctions relief.

The report in Haaretz comes out amid increased lobbying by the nuclear deal’s advocates and opponents of members of Congress, who have two months to approve or reject the agreement reached last week between negotiators from world powers and Iran.

Furthermore, the officials laughed at the reports in the Israeli press that world powers committed to helping Iran protect its nuclear sites. “This thing aims to protect a disaster like Chernobyl or assassination of Iranian officials,” the Obama administration officials tell Haaretz, “and answers specific demands of Gulf states.” They specified that the clause in the agreement doesn’t offer defense “from the attacks of the type Israel talks about.”

The full text of the Haaretz briefing is expected to be published Friday.

The two Israelis implicated in a cyber attack on American banking giant J.P. Morgan are identified in Israel Hayom’s main story. After their arrest, Gery Shalon and Ziv Orenstein, both of central Israel, were brought before the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, which permitted the publication of their names and extension of their remand until August 10. Two other suspects, residing in Florida, were arrested in the sting; a fifth, another Israeli man, apparently fled to Russia, with whom Israel has no extradition treaty.

An investigation of the two yielded NIS 2 million in cash, the paper reports. If convicted, the charges against them of money laundering, fraud and identity theft pile up to decades in prison apiece, Israel Hayom says.

Abandoned on Page 6 in Yedioth Ahronoth is the paper’s report that students, lecturers and university and college heads have joined forces in Israel to protest the proposed NIS 263 million cut in higher education funding by the government. A graphic shows OECD figures from 2011 which indicate that Israel’s spending per student is lower that the average among the world’s 35 most developed states.

In a letter sent to the ministers of education and finance and Israeli lawmakers, heads of Israeli universities lambasted the cut as “destructive,” and said that while everyone’s proud of the “start-up nation” moniker Israel’s adopted and the many Nobel laureates who call it home, “with this decision the State of Israel harms its most important resource — the human resource — and the future of the Israeli economy, its development and prosperity.”

Haaretz reports on a dramatic decision by the Tel Aviv Municipality to push forward a massive construction project that would no doubt transform the face of the city. In essence, the municipality plans to envelop the bustling Ayalon highway with a large roof covered with parks, promenades and apartments. The project would provide Tel Aviv with an immense green space and ease residents’ mobility throughout the city. The plan faces challenges, though, specifically on the financial front, and has still not been officially authorized.

Following last week’s dramatic flyby of Pluto by NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft, the Israeli Ministry of Science Technology and Space is offering teenagers the opportunity to participate in a visit to the famed US space agency. According to Yedioth, students between the age of 12 and 15 may take part in a competition organized by minister Danny Danon to design and build a homemade satellite. The designers of the two top models as determined by a panel of judges will be awarded a spot in a “space camp” for young geniuses organized by NASA. While the winners’ model may not join the 14 Israeli satellites currently orbiting our planet, still, NASA space camp sounds like an experience that is out of this world.

— Adiv Sterman contributed to this report.