The Big Skim: 10 things for your February 27

Editor’s note: Today we are launching The Big Skim, a revamped version of the Hebrew Media Review, to respond to the changing media landscape. The goal will be to feature a digest of what’s in the Hebrew press and other Israel-related news items from around the world. Leave feedback in the comments section or email josh@timesofisrael.com. Thanks and happy skimming.

1. The full transcript of a WhatsApp exchange alleged to show collusion between judge Ronit Poznansky-Katz and securities prosecutor Eran Shacham-Shavit in the Case 4000 Bezeq affair provides some context that was unavailable in the earlier smoking-gun snippet. It changes the calculus for some in Tuesday’s dailies, while others continue to see the judge and prosecutor in the harshest light possible.

• “Bad, but less so,” reads a column heading in Yedioth Ahronoth, which features an annotated transcript.
• Haaretz reports that the full text puts the messages “in a new light” but prosecutors are quoted saying it’s still bad anyway. “A prosecutor should not have a judge’s phone number. The two crossed lines,” one says, though a police source says any talk of corruption is taking it too far.
• Likewise, columnist Ido Baum, who already tried to play down the affair Monday, writes in the broadsheet that it’s nothing more than an attempt to distract from the main Netanyahu investigation: “There’s much to fix in investigatory and judicial bodies and regarding arrests and jailings. But it seems decision-makers only remember them when the suspects are the prime minister and his associates.”
• Yedioth columnist Yoaz Hendel writes in the tabloid that the actions of the judge and prosecutor “require some soul searching,” but “just because of one mistake you don’t close the whole shop” with accusations that the whole judicial system is rotten. Hendel also notes that the same charges leveled by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s backers of police creating cases out of whole cloth is also used by backers of Palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi: “The law enforcement and judicial systems are not perfect. But they are not the source of the problem.”

2. On the other side of the fence, Israel Hayom continues to pound away at the pair, its front page screaming “Quit or be removed,” with over 20 more pages devoted to the scandal.

• “These are severe criminal actions of obstruction of justice, whose punishment could be three years in prison,” columnist Haim Shine writes in the tabloid.
• In Makor Rishon, former judge Daniel Ernest is quoted saying that it would be better for everyone if Poznansky-Katz just quit: “She could save herself months of trouble until she is fired, and maybe even save her from a criminal investigation.”

3. The findings of a judicial review that may decide their fates is due out later Tuesday. In the meantime, both the judge and the lawyer are telling investigators that they are innocent, and only coordinated by phone because they didn’t have secretaries, according to reports in Channel 10 and Hadashot news.

• Perhaps hinting at the way the review will go, Yedioth Ahronoth quotes high-level judicial sources saying the judge is toast. “She can’t preside over cases anymore, she’s lost moral validity to remain on the bench,” the sources are quoted saying.

4. A gruesome incident in which a father in the central Israeli city of Raanana stabbed his wife, killed his son and then jumped in front of a train, is also garnering attention.

• “Why dad,” reads the front-page headline of Israel Hayom. “The man who kidnapped innocent Evyatar (just 3 years old) from the arms of his mother and then killed him is not fit to be called a father,” columnist Ariel Shmidberg writes in the same paper. “This terrible killer is made of all evil, all that is wrong, all that is unacceptable.”

5. Jacob Magid reports in The Times of Israel that after a top military official accused Mohammed Tamimi of being injured by falling off his bike and not by being hit by a rubber bullet and called the family con artists, the Tamimis released medical records showing he was indeed injured by IDF fire. How he was injured could matter because Ahed Tamimi is in jail for slapping the soldier she says shot Mohammed, her cousin.

6. The Anti-Defamation League’s annual audit of anti-Semitism in the US released Tuesday shows it surged in 2017 to nearly 2,000 incidents, 57 percent more than the year before. “A confluence of events in 2017 led to a surge in attacks on our community – from bomb threats, cemetery desecrations, white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, and children harassing children at school,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO, is quoted telling JTA.

7. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre remains closed in Jerusalem as Christian leaders protest Israeli policies and Christian pilgrims are paying the price. “I am so near yet so far,” a woman from the Philippines tells Haaretz, standing next to the locked door. “This was a lifetime dream for me. I’ve saved for this trip for so many years. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to come again. I’m heartbroken.”

8. Al-Monitor reports that Israel’s Arrow missile defense system is drawing increased interest for use in the US, though it faces an uphill battle against the THAAD. “Arrow 3 is more capable than THAAD …No chance that the US industries, Congress or [the Donald Trump] administration will allow US armed forces to buy Arrow instead of buying American,” former Israeli missile defense head Uzi Rubin is quoted saying.

9. Maybe no missiles, but some still see Trump and Israel as best buds. The Washington Post goes inside a $750-a-plate fundraiser put on by the Truth About Israel organization at the president’s Mar-A-Lago resort, where many others have canceled events. ““This president has had Israel’s back like no president has since the days of Ronald Reagan,” organizer Steven Alembik tells the paper.

• Judah Ari Gross writes about the first time the Arrow was used.

10. Tweet of the day goes to Bloomberg’s Jennifer Epstein, who notes the White House’s Stephen Miller having a hell of a time staying awake at a meeting on school safety.