Sticking it to the men

On Tuesday afternoon, a source in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office sent a message to journalists disputing published numbers that showed fewer new settlement homes were being approved than had been expected, claiming that Netanyahu works harder for the settlement enterprise than anyone else.

The author of the message was unwilling to put his name or the name of his office behind the statement, and asked reporters to attribute the numbers and quotes to a “diplomatic source” — essentially asking reporters to lie, since the source was not in fact a diplomat, and an actual diplomat would be reprimanded for sending out a political message like that.

The statement and request to lie to readers was just another day in the spin machine, as officials continue to try and massage their messages in the press. If Wednesday’s paper are much of an indication, though, it’s not working, with powerful men from Netanyahu to US President Donald Trump to Hollywood producer and suspected serial sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein under fire.

While Israel Hayom, which is essentially a propaganda arm for Netanyahu, reports his office’s bloated numbers faithfully, as well as the quote from the supposed diplomatic source who is not a diplomat, the other papers show little patience for the games.

Yedioth Ahronoth buries the story deep inside its pages, reporting only the settler leaders’ unhappiness that there won’t be 4,000 units as expected but closer to 1,000, and leaving out the PMO statement altogether.

Haaretz puts the statement in its story, but correctly attributes it to Netanyahu’s office and angles its coverage on the fact that the prime minister is trying to pull a fast one over the public.

“Under pressure from the settler lobby, the Prime Minister’s Office has over the past few days invested a great deal in creating the impression that a new wave of settlement construction is in the offing. But a close examination of the list of construction plans expected to be approved next week shows that despite declarations that plans for some 3,800 new homes are being advanced, the government is expected to approve only around 600 new units,” the paper reports.

While the story is not big news in Yedioth (or anywhere), the tabloid does give Netanyahu a fresh bloody nose by bringing the submarine scandal back to the surface, reporting that ex-defense minister Moshe Yaalon claims that the prime minister himself — who is not a suspect in the bribes for boats affair — put pressure on the Defense Ministry to cancel a tender for the vessels, apparently ensuring Germany’s ThyssenKrupp could get the contract and his lawyer David Shimron could get a hefty payday.

“There was intervention by the Prime Minister’s Bureau in an attempt to torpedo the tender. Netanyahu himself came to me and said: ‘Why is there a tender?’” the paper’s lead story quotes Ya’alon telling associates, with the money quote splashed across the front page.

The submarine scandal has faded from the top of the news agenda partly thanks to other concerns, such as the resurgence of tensions with Iran and the fate of the nuclear deal. Continuing to push the narrative of Tehran as unworthy of the nuclear pact, Israel Hayom leads off with a Fox News report that Iran made 173 attempts over the past two years to acquire illegal missile or nuclear technology.

Despite that, columnist Yoav Limor holds out little hope that the nuclear deal will actually be dismantled, pointing out that there is no smoking gun of wrongdoing. But he holds out hope Israeli and American intel will continue to watch closely to keep Iran under the gun.

“Israel has an important role in giving intelligence and evidence, and maybe even returning to its role as ‘the crazy one’ threatening to attack. But lessons learned from what happened before the deal show that it would do well to act modestly, behind closed doors, and certainly not to be seen as the one leading the way. This way another potential clash with world powers can be avoided, along with Israel being blamed if it fails,” he writes. “History shows that the more pressure put on Iran, the more likely it will blink first.”

In Haaretz, though, Trump is seen as the one under the gun, with one story noting that the White House is being described as a “pressure cooker situation,” and analyst Amos Harel writing that Israelis are not taking much heart from the chaos in Washington.

“Israel was and remains a secondary sphere for the Trump administration…. But Israeli officials, who are in regular contact with their colleagues in Washington, are finding it difficult to hide their embarrassment in the face of the fog and confusion still surrounding the administration’s actions,” he writes. “Many senior positions in Washington have yet to be filled and it seems that in many cases the administration’s officials are busy with their own personal survival, while they are trying in vain to guess what Trump will say next – and from which they are then supposed to deduce US policy. In the background lies the fear, shared by those in both Israel and the United States, that the pandemonium which characterizes all the administration’s actions is already being exploited by more disciplined, sophisticated players in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran.”

Harel jokingly refers to the administration and the damage it is wreaking as “Hurricane Donald,” and Yedioth makes the same hackneyed joke, only this time as a headline for its not at all funny story about allegations of sexual misconduct, including rape, against producer Harvey Weinstein — or Hurricane Harvey.

The paper writes that “the flow of testimonies of sexual harassment against Hollywood super-producer Harvey Weinstein is not halting,” reporting on the oodles of women who have come out against him.

Columnist Tzipi Shmulovitch notes that Hollywood has a culture of sexism, but it’s not only Weinstein or Tinseltown who have what to answer for.

“People made terrible compromises and will have to live with them, but not only Hollywood is guilty. The American media is guilty no less,” she writes. “Every journalist who writes now pondering ‘how wasn’t this published before, since everyone knew’ needs to answer firstly why they didn’t publish anything if the stories were there. Powerful people who knew what was happening and closed their eyes also need to answer some tough questions. But the harder question needs to be answered by all of America: How can it be that a regular citizen, rich and powerful as he is, who attacked women is judged by a much higher standard than the man who was sent to serve in the White House.”