Through blood-colored glasses

Any politician will tell you optics can be just as important, if not more important, than actual policy decisions. It’s why you don’t want to be seen glad-handing with a convicted rapist, or let video of you swinging a 3-wood as tragedy strikes elsewhere get out.

But bad optics can also take on other forms, like US President Obama’s decision to put on some googly-eyed virtual reality headset minutes after making the proclamation that the world is in better shape than ever, and as senators from his own party plead with him to up security aid to Israel – drawing from some Israeli columnists the accusation that he’s living in a dream world.

Or there’s the bad optics of getting caught hosting military planes from Azerbaijan as Baku engages in a mini-war with Armenia, a conflict Israel has little interest being seen getting engaged in, with the story emerging just days after Israel’s Armenian community commemorated a genocide that Jerusalem still refuses to recognize.

And of course who can forget the poor optics — for a country trying to present itself as a bastion of liberal values and coexistence — of a high-profile soccer match descending into Arab-Jewish fighting.
All those stories get prominent play in Israel’s major dailies Tuesday morning, but it’s the US senators sending a letter to Obama asking him to show Israel the money that gets the highest profile play across all three papers.

Israel Hayom, the only one of the three to lead with the story, reports that “there is a rise in pressure on Obama to up defense aid for Israel.” While much of the story is a simple recounting of the letter signed by 83 senators , the paper also includes gleeful responses from Jerusalem, including Minister Zeev Elkin’s raspberry at the naysayers who said congressional support was at a nadir.

“Despite the prophecies of doom from the left, who claimed it’s forbidden for Israel to fight for its national and security interests in the US, and that the prime minister’s battle [against the Iran nuclear deal] will harm Israel’s security and the support of Democrats, we see now that bipartisan support for Israel remains strong,” he’s quoted saying.

Similarly, Yedioth Ahronoth leads off its coverage by quoting unnamed sources saying that “It’s encouraging to see a large amount of support for Israel from the two largest parties in the US and from the American public.”

The paper goes on to report that that Israel denies any delay in inking the highly-touted multi-billion dollar aid deal is a manifestation of any crises but rather says it’s just “disagreements given the security challenges facing us,” which is a quote it attributes to the ethereal body known as “in Israel.”

What the papers don’t mention is that Obama has reached a full-on
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ phase, and may have just made the letter into a paper airplane since as a lame duck he doesn’t really need to care about what others think of him, or that’s at least how some Israeli commentators view him. The president may have been in earnest when he said the world is in “the most peaceful, most prosperous, most progressive era in human history,” but the quote is pilloried in both tabloids, both of which don’t hesitate in using the same silly picture of Obama trying on a virtual reality headset as illustration (seen above).

“Obama doesn’t bother with facts,” Yedioth’s Ben-Dror Yemini writes. “He lives in a world of his own. And it’s a bit sad that the leader of the most important world power is living in dream land.”

Israel Hayom’s Boaz Bismuth is even more snide, snot-nosedly noting that Obama may be right, if he’s comparing now to the 14th century.

“Truth be told, Obama is living in the same dream world we would all like to take part in. In Obama’s dream, everyone is good, everyone is loving, and everyone has great health insurance. Obama’s reality is just like the health insurance he forced upon the Americans: In theory it’s all wonderful, but in reality it’s not anything great. Maybe because of that 83(!) senators called for him to up defense aid to Israel – because the world has not turned into a safer place, even if Attila the Hun isn’t around anymore.”

Wars happen, it’s true, and though the last thing the Middle East needs is to get embroiled in another one, Haaretz reports that Israel may have stuck its nose into a recent flare-up between Azerbaijan and Armenia, hosting at least two cargo planes from Baku possibly carrying military equipment.

Doing some online sleuthing, the paper reports that the planes, belonging to the Azeri defense ministry, flew south toward the Uvda military airfield where they disappeared from flight-tracking software for several hours, adding that it’s unclear if the jets loaded or unloaded cargo. Yet despite the skullduggery, the link between Jerusalem and Baku shouldn’t come as a huge surprise.

“Israel and Azerbaijan have a strategic alliance going back many years. The fact that Azerbaijan is a secular Muslim republic, along with its geographical proximity to Iran, makes it very important to Israel. Azerbaijan is also one of Israel’s chief oil suppliers,” the paper reports. “According to foreign reports, Israel has become a key supplier of arms to Azerbaijan in recent years, selling nearly $5 billion worth of weapons over the past four years.”

One need not go all the way to Ngorno-Karabakh for ethnic fighting, though. Israeli soccer fans were able to see it live Monday night as a scoreless playoff match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Bnei Sakhnin in the Arab town of Sakhnin ended in a melee between coaches, trainers and players from both teams.

What might have been high tensions between hotheads in the heat of the game elsewhere took an a particularly dangerous interethnic flavor given the location and the claims of local Arab guards beating Jewish players. As Maccabi captain Eran Zahavi put it to Yedioth, “I didn’t know if I was playing in Israel or Ramallah.”

In response, the paper quotes Ali Othman from Sakhnin saying life isn’t so peachy for the sole team from an Arab town in Israel’s premier league: “We aren’t terrorists, and when we play games in other places they also treat us not nicely.”

Throwing some water on the fire, former foreign minister Moshe Arens mounts a rousing defense on Haaretz’s op-ed page of Israeli Arabs, including some who have come under attack for expressing unpopular views. As a case in point he takes MK Zouheir Bahloul, whom he defends for saying Palestinians who attack soldiers aren’t terrorists, even if he doesn’t agree with it.

“Bahloul, although a member of Zionist Union, is not a Zionist and should not be expected to be a Zionist. He is a Palestinian Israeli citizen, and it’s only natural that his attitude to Palestinians and their national aspirations differs from those of his Jewish colleagues,” he writes. “It’s important to understand that. … One should not forget that he has the courage to demonstrate his belief in the coexistence of Jews and Arabs in Israel and the integration of Israel’s Arab citizens into Israel’s society and economy. Hopefully he will serve as a model to more of Israel’s Arab citizens. Their participation on the political scene along with Israel’s Jewish citizens is essential to Israeli democracy.”