The top cop pick is dead, long live the top cop pick

There’s a new candidate for sheriff police commissioner in town, and the press reaction to the news of the appointment Sunday couldn’t be more different than the crucible of fire afforded his predecessor Gal Hirsch.

The candidate, a deputy head of the Shin Bet security service, couldn’t be named beyond his first initial R in the print press (his name was later revealed to be Roni Alsheich), but the papers still have plenty to say about him, most of it positive.

Yedioth Ahronoth run a picture of the internal man of mystery with his face blurred alongside what can only be called a hagiography of the man who it reports was convinced to take the job he initially rejected after a conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“For 27 years, R stood behind the screen, moved in the shadows, acting under the protection of darkness,” the paper’s news story begins poetically. “Twenty-seven years he spent on Israel’s security in the most undercover and complicated positions and missions, but soon, if there’s no dramatic about-face, he’ll emerge into the floodlights – and be appointed to one of the most central positions in Israel – a position that touches on the day-to-day life of every citizen.”

The man behind the shadows is apparently well enough known that Yedioth was able to call him up, getting killer quotes like “I’m excited. This is a big challenge.”

It’s not only R that is excited. Israel Hayom crows that there is “wall-to-wall” praise for the father of 7 little initials, calling him “the man the police need now” on its front page.

The paper reports that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein gave his okay and most of the former police chiefs people who cried foul over the appointment of Gal Hirsch are hunky dory with the pick of R. The one question that could have held up his appointment, whether a home he occupied in a West Bank settlement was built of private Palestinian land, was answered in the negative, clearing the way for his approval, the paper writes.

The nearly uncritical acclaim extends as well to commentator Yoav Limor, who writes that R was convinced to take the job after Netanyahu made clear to him he had no shot at the Shin Bet top job he had been gunning for. And somehow Limor is also able to point out and then quickly push aside some reasons some might not like R.

“R has the tools to succeed. The police are crying out for leadership, and he definitely knows how to lead (even if he sometimes suffers from being too dictatorial.) He is a straight arrow, fair and clear of any stains on his record, and will be used as a role model for the police and public,” he writes. “The only criticism, if there is any, will be around the kippa on his head and his political opinions. R is thought of as a right-winger, yet nothing in his past shows that he has shown favoritism to this or that community – a hint for those who think he might go easy on right-wing extremists, but also a sign for those who think he’ll be empathetic to public servants who find themselves under investigation.”

Even Haaretz can only muster a “meh, why not,” when confronted with the nomination, which is about as close as a rightist will get to plaudits from the proudly left-leaning broadsheet. In fact, the paper’s Amos Harel wonders why a man of R’s stature would want the famously tainted position.

“No senior appointment in Israel can go smoothly, so we can expect a bit of controversy over his ideological background,” he writes. “But, whatever happens, there is a question in the background that has not yet been satisfactorily answered: What motivates a man like R, who is considered to be the leading candidate for the position of head of the Shin Bet, which becomes available in another eight months, to stick his healthy head into the sickbed of the police?”

Saying goodbye to Kirschenbaum

The sudden death of journalist Moti Kirschenbaum also reverberates through the press Sunday morning, with papers filled with eulogies where the tears from what seems like every commentator and their mother nearly spill off the page.

“His place in Israeli media is without parallel. Great journalists generally concentrate on one area: There are those who are good at field reporting; and those who are good at long-form, documentary-makers; and there are those who excel at hosting talk shows; there are those who excel as editors; and those as presenters, and those as leaders, managers. But when they try to do it all, they descend into mediocrity,” Yedioth’s Nahum Barnea writes. “Kirschenbaum filled all those roles, and in each one he brought something special, something that turned his work into a landmark.”

In Haaretz, Rogel Alpher also praises Kirschenbaum as a one-of-a-kind personality who will be missed.

“On Israeli TV there’s a whole generation of producers who don’t dare to even think about what Kirschenbaum did for broadcasts,” he writes. “It’s not correct to write that anyone can be replaced. Not one-of-a-kind people. Not Kirschenbaum.”