Throw the Facebook at ’em

Yair Lapid has only been head of the Finance Ministry for a few weeks, but if Wednesday’s papers are any indication, he’s already kicked up enough maelstroms to give Kim Jong Un a run for his money. After sweeping into office under the banner of “new politics,” Lapid has attempted to shake things up, with his underlings at the ministry none the happier for it. First he told them to drop everything and concentrate on the well-off yet fictional Riki Cohen from Hadera, and now he has accused them of going behind his back to issue students an ultimatum that could result in tuition fees rising 20 percent.

Yedioth Ahronoth plays the whole affair up, pitting Lapid squarely against his senior staffers, and writing that the minister called the deputy budgets director into his office on Tuesday for a dressing down and to make sure he knows that “senior staffers don’t have the authority to manage negotiations or to present economic plans without [Lapid] knowing.”

The paper’s senior economic columnist, Sever Plotzker, takes issue with Lapid’s constant use of Facebook as a tool to take his staffers down a peg: “The finance minister is the only one in the world to use Facebook as a tool to publicly castigate his staffers and to bring them to account, to show them who’s boss.”

Maariv reports that students were happy to hear Lapid’s promise that he wasn’t going to raise tuition and that he would fight himself on their behalf, which we imagine might look something like this.

Shlomo Yerushalmi, writing in the paper, takes Lapid’s side and says ministry staff members need to learn their place:

“The Finance Ministry staffers are working behind the back of the finance minister and his deputy and against their ideologies, and are forcing them to err with the public. One says one thing in the morning and a second another thing in the afternoon. Secondly, Facebook is a great way to spread messages but also to embroil yourself with the whole world. “

Where have all the ministers gone

In Haaretz, pictures speak louder than words, especially its massive front-page photo of an empty table. What’s so impressive about an empty table (the same photogenic one that papers loved running pictures of just a few months ago)? It just happens to be the ministers’ table in the Knesset during an all-important discussion on upcoming budget cuts, which apparently every minister missed because they had to wash their hair. The paper doesn’t name the lone soul siting at the table, but it seems to be deputy Finance Minister MK Miki Levy, who was sent to be fed to the opposition wolves in the Knesset in place of Lapid and his luxurious shocks of silver.

The paper also reports that new Intelligence and Strategy Minister Yuval Steinitz is asking for two highly-paid ministry directors, one for intelligence and one for strategy, natch. The paper notes that Silvan Shalom managed two offices in his last term with only one director and reports that Steinitz himself, as finance minister, opposed the Labor, Trade and Industry Ministry getting another director, which costs the state NIS 1.4 million a year.

Seoul searching

Israel Hayom takes a completely different direction, devoting a chunk of its paper to tensions in the Koreas, where they have helpfully sent correspondent Boaz Bismuth to hopefully not die in a nuclear explosion.

Writing from Seoul, Bismuth says that the city feels a lot like Tel Aviv last November, during the heart of Operation Pillar of Defense.

“Not long ago we felt this reality — rockets and missiles landing in the south, and in Tel Aviv, a half hour’s drive away, life going on as normal. Yesterday, a few hours after I landed in South Korea, I had a similar feeling. On the one hand, there are the winds of war following the crisis in the peninsula and the threats of the northern leader, Kim Jong Un. On the other hand, coffee shops are crammed with people in Seoul, the capital of the south.”

Ignoring the prevailing winds around it is a specialty of Tel Aviv café culture, and according to Yedioth, of Rishon Lezion as well. The paper reports that the city’s Memorial Day commemoration for fallen soldiers and terror victims has turned into one big party, especially if you are a pop singer’s wallet. The paper notes that among the acts performing at the celebration commemoration are popsters Rita (for NIS 35,000), Eyal Golan (NIS 25,000) and Miri Mesika (NIS 20,000). Golan claims that the fee is for his band and Mesika says the money was offered by the concert organizers.

Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, the paper reports, the city will host its own gaggle of stars, while only doling out NIS 4,000. But even if the price is right in the White City, the performers may not be. The country’s main organization for families of fallen soldiers, Yad Lebanim, has asked the city to cancel performances by Ivri Lider, who only served part time in the army, and Ithar Ashdot, who recently released a song critical of IDF grunts.

But there are also bigger fish to fry. Maariv reports that the head of the Kibbutz Movement is angry that the country is not paying proper respect to fallen soldiers who hailed from kibbutzim, which have paid a proportionally higher price in Israel’s wars. “We are meeting here today people with different roles and also key positions,” the paper says Eitan Broshi will say in a speech today at a memorial for fallen kibbutz members. “They show a lack of knowledge and hostility toward the Kibbutz Movement. They don’t know the story of Tel Hai, didn’t hear about the harsh battles in Gush Etzion, and also not about the stories of paratroopers from the Yishuv in World War II.

“Also the stories of battles at Deganya, Negba and other settlements of the Negev in the War of Independence are not known to them.”

After a slew of not-so-sad farewells to Margaret Thatcher on Tuesday, Hezi Sternlicht writes a bit of a hagiography for the former British premier in Israel Hayom, noting that she did what had to be done to save the “sick woman” that was 1970s England: “The Thatcher legacy is one of doing the right thing. Not to hesitate, and try to look beyond the horizon when you are steering a massive ship like the world’s economy,” he writes.

Haaretz, meanwhile, throws its weight behind a plan to release what will be on matriculation exams at the beginning of the year, so teachers don’t have to worry about students learning things they won’t be tested on: “This change would mean that there would be some topics that would not appear on the exams and would therefore not be taught. But if the topics that are included are studied more thoroughly, that’s a price that can be paid.”