Sounding the alarm

Air raid sirens wailed throughout the country on Monday as part of a preparedness drill, but Tuesday’s papers raised the alarm of a possible coalition crisis between Yesh Atid and Likud.

Maariv’s headline captures the essence of the brief dust-up: “Lapid threatens to quit, Netanyahu instructs Ya’alon to retreat.” Inside, the paper fills in the details of the story, which saw Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon opposing individual sanctions against ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers. This raised the ire of Finance Minister Yair Lapid, who ran on the platform of draft equality and stated on Monday, “Anyone who thinks that we came into politics just to solve the economic catastrophe left by the previous government, is wrong,”

Netanyahu’s involvement in the crisis Monday night seemingly solved the issue and Yedioth Ahronoth headline characterizes Lapid’s successful threat to break apart the coalition as a case of “Flexing his muscles.” Columnist Sima Kadmon says Netanyahu had to cave on the issue. “The government won’t fall, not now and not over this. The last thing that Netanyahu is interested in is Lapid making an issue out of this,” she writes.

Where Yedioth focuses its coverage on Lapid, Israel Hayom emphasizes Netanyahu with the headline, “PM: This is an invented crisis, we will not interfere with the draft bill.” The paper quotes Netanyahu as saying that the gaps between the sides over the issue of individual sanctions are not large and that they could be dealt with during the debate about the actual legislation.

Israel Hayom gives the most coverage to the flare-up, including an article that says the ultra-Orthodox parties are ready to help Netanyahu if he needs it. “If Yesh Atid quits the government — we’re ready to sit in the coalition,” reads the headline, which is a quote from United Torah Judaism’s Yaakov Litzman. Litzman offered another reason for Lapid’s threat to break up the coalition: “I guess the finance minister feels he has lost the people. He feels that his voters left. Polls show him this, so he is looking for an excuse to get away.”

Haaretz’s Yossi Vertner provides some analysis of the situation in a piece titled “Netanyahu blinked first.” Verter concludes that thanks to popular opinion, Netanyahu in an inferior position to Lapid. He writes that the prime minister’s own party colleague, Tzachi Hanegbi, challenged Ya’alon directly, “What does a young ultra-Orthodox person [who Ya’alon is refusing to apply sanctions to] have over a young secular person [who, in the event of draft dodging, would be punished]?”

No practice necessary?

While the most prominent coverage in Tuesday’s papers went to the coalition crisis, Yedioth reports that another crisis is hitting the IDF especially hard. IDF chief Benny Gantz is expected to tell the Knesset that due to budget reductions the IDF may have to drastically reduce training for the standing army and reservists, and for the purchase of equipment. Even big name projects like the missile defense shield “David’s Sling” are in danger. However, the cuts aren’t worrying those in the Knesset. Eitan Cabel, who sits on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said, “It can’t be that every time there is talk about budget cuts the IDF is allowed to scare us.”

Speaking of scaring, a large-scale training exercise took place across the country on Monday with air raid sirens sounding twice as part of a simulated missile attack on the country. Maariv reported that the first day of the exercise went well and that the exercise will continue into Tuesday, although no more air raid sirens will go off.

Part of Monday’s exercise simulated missiles from Syria and while all was quiet on the northern front for Israel, Israel Hayom reports that within Syria all is not well. The paper focuses on US Senator John McCain’s secret visit with the Syrian rebels inside Syria for a number of hours on Monday. McCain met with rebel leaders who requested American assistance with providing arms to help overthrow the Assad regime. Israel Hayom also notes that the French newspaper “Le Monde” is reporting that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons over the past two months and that one of its photographers was injured in a chemical weapon attack.

Taxes new and diminishing

Haaretz has a feature story that delves into the results of the Israel Police’s internal report on damages from civil suits for 2012. The paper labels the over 27 million shekels ($7.2 million) paid out for negligence, inappropriate conduct, and assaults as “negligence tax.” A large of the sum goes to cases where police did not assist citizens who called for help. The article states that over the past five years police have paid over NIS 100 million shekels ($26.9 million) for negligence and mishandling of citizens’ calls for assistance.

Finally, while taxes are being raised on cigarettes as part of the new budget, there might not be as much revenue, since Yedioth reports that fewer Israelis are smoking. In an annual report by the Health Ministry, there was a slight drop in the number of smokers and among the smoking population, 30% reported that they are smoking less because of anti-smoking laws. Tel Aviv has been the most strict in enforcing the ban on smoking in public places, handing out over 2,900 tickets for public smoking in 2012, whereas Haifa issued only 213 in 2012.