Hebrew media review

Storm’s a-comin’

From thousands of miles away, the Hebrew-language press is awestruck over images of death and destruction wrought by Hurricane Matthew

Adiv Sterman is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

A police officer walks along the beach as waves crash ashore as Hurricane Matthew approaches the area on October 6, 2016 in Singer Island, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP)
A police officer walks along the beach as waves crash ashore as Hurricane Matthew approaches the area on October 6, 2016 in Singer Island, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP)

Judging solely by the genuinely frightening, gloomy-gray images of damage and destruction featured on the front pages of Israel’s leading Hebrew-language newspapers, one might mistakenly conclude that Hurricane Matthew was threatening to wreak havoc not only on Haiti’s southwest peninsula, Cuba’s eastern tip and Florida’s coast, but also on the sunny beaches of Tel Aviv or the hills of Jerusalem.

“Millions of Americans flee the storm,” reads the main headline in Israel Hayom, accompanied by an eery photo showing masses of vehicles stuck in a seemingly endless traffic jam, like a still shot from the opening credits of “The Walking Dead.” The apocalyptic imagery is even more pronounced in Yedioth Ahronoth, where a reporter declares that the hurricane, based on satellite photos, “looks like a satanic skull,” no less.

As of this writing, some 300 people are reported to have died in Haiti’s southwest, the region that has taken the brunt of the Category 4 storm, the first to hit the island in more than a century. Matthew’s 145 mph (235 kph) winds smashed concrete walls, flattened palm trees and tore roofs off homes, and the Haitian government has estimated that at least 350,000 people are now in need of some kind of assistance due to the havoc wreaked by the strong winds.

In Cuba, Matthew has destroyed dozens of homes and damaged hundreds more in the island’s easternmost city, Baracoa. And in the US, the monster hurricane’s howling wind and driving rain have pummeled Florida, starting what’s expected to be a ruinous battering of the Southeast coast.

State Comptroller Yosef Shapira (R) hands the latest State Comptroller's report to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein on May 24, 2016. (Issac Harari/Flash90)
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira (R) hands the latest State Comptroller’s report to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein on May 24, 2016. (Issac Harari/Flash90)

Haaretz, as opposed to its rival papers, leads with a report claiming State Comptroller Yosef Shapira has over the past several weeks demanded that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit probe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s financing of trips abroad when he served as head of the opposition. The report comes days after police called in World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder for questioning as part of an investigation into Netanyahu, though at this point it is not clear whether Shapira’s demands are related to that incident.

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing as a series of probes into his financial dealings have made headlines and then receded. Recently, Mandelblit ordered police to stop work into one of the cases and there are reported differences of opinion between Mandelblit and police investigators, who wish to question additional figures under caution.

The left-leaning paper also dedicates a fair portion of its front page to Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s call for Israel to make “sacrifices” in order to extend its sovereignty over the West Bank. The Jewish Home party leader made an appeal for annexation a day after the Obama administration officials upbraided Israel for plans to build up to 300 housing units in the West Bank settlement of Shiloh to compensate homeowners in the nearby outpost of Amona ahead of its court-ordered evacuation and demolition in December.

Haaretz writer Barak Ravid notes that while Bennett refrained from referring to Netanyahu directly, the Jewish Home chairman made no attempt at masking his criticism of Israeli leaders who have come out in favor of a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu, rhetorically at least, has endorsed the two-state solution on numerous occasions.

IAF pilot Maj. Ohad Cohen Nov, 34, died Wednesday, October 5, 2016 while ejecting from his F-16 fighter jet while trying to land at the Ramon air base in southern Israel. (Courtesy)
IAF pilot Maj. Ohad Cohen Nov, 34, died Wednesday, October 5, 2016 while ejecting from his F-16 fighter jet while trying to land at the Ramon air base in southern Israel. (Courtesy)

In all three papers, extensive coverage is dedicated to Maj. Ohad Cohen Nov, 34, who was killed as his two-seater fighter returned from a bombing run against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. According to the IDF, both Cohen Nov and the navigator managed to eject from the plane, but questions have been raised as to when exactly Cohen Nov managed to bail out and if he was still alive at the time of ejection. IAF chief Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel ordered an investigation into the incident to be led by a colonel, the army said. “We will do everything we can in order to understand what exactly happened,” reads an Israel Hayom quote attributed to Eshel.

Cohen Nov left behind a pregnant wife and one daughter, as well as two sisters and his parents. “He was a man who lived his dreams,” Cohen Nov’s friend Dor tells Yedioth. “He was crazy talented, crazy strong, and crazy determined… I can’t believe I am talking about him in past tense.”

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