Trump card, wildcard, crushed car

If one wanted to get an idea of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his posse trying to broadcast diminishing expectations for Wednesday’s meeting with US President Donald Trump, one need look no further than Israel Hayom, widely seen as a mouthpiece for Netanyahu and window into his worldview.

For the last several days, the visit has been gradually receding from the top of the paper’s agenda, as fear over all the ways it could go wrong has grown.

It started on Sunday, when the visit was one-upped by Boaz Bismuth’s interview with the president, continued on Monday, when it took a backseat to stories about babies dying, and finally on Tuesday morning, as excitement should be reaching a fever pitch, it is almost nowhere to be found on the front page, shunted behind stories about Gaza’s new leader and a construction crane collapse in Bat Yam.

True, there’s not much new under the sun about Netanyahu’s meeting, with much of Monday having been spent with those most likely to write about the visit on the plane with the prime minister and thus unable to file copy. The other major papers also downplay the upcoming meeting, but Israel Hayom usually distinguishes itself by putting Netanyahu’s diplomatic movements uber alles.

By way of comparison, on May 17, 2009, a day before Netanyahu’s first meeting with then-president Barack Obama, the whole top half of Israel Hayom’s front page was taken up with previewing the meeting, as well as the next two pages of the paper. But what could have gone wrong then?

Netanyahu still makes an appearance on the front pages of the other two papers, though for things Israel Hayom would likely rather avoid.

Yedioth Ahronoth leads off with a report that the prime minister is expected to shed the Communications Ministry amid a High Court petition to have him stripped of the role over conflicts of interest, including with Yedioth publisher Arnon Mozes, fearing everything could come tumbling out if the case goes in front of the judges.

The story, citing unnamed “political sources,” reports that the position is likely to be given to either Tzachi Hanegbi or Miri Regev, “who has protected Netanyahu and his wife fearlessly in the media.”

Haaretz’s front page features Netanyahu and his wife Sara fearlessly boarding a plane for the US, but the paper’s lead story reports on German anger at the Regulation Bill, with Berlin canceling a Government 2 Government summit.

But fear of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s wrath is but a trifle when compared to the prime minister’s jitters over angry tweets he could suffer at the hands of Trump, and Haaretz editor Aluf Benn notes that that is the reason the Netanyahu has tried to lower expectations, with him expected to toe the line and not attempt to rattle the slumbering giant while in Washington.

“Netanyahu is dependent on the goodwill of his host. Trump could give him his backing and assure him of quiet on the political front – or whip up a squall that shatters the calm and truncates his time on the throne,” he writes. “That is why Netanyahu explained to his cabinet members on Sunday that there will be no fights with Trump. The prime minister’s demonstrations of aggression and arrogance for the benefit of the previous president, Barack Obama, have been shelved; his bag of tricks, shticks and leaks has been locked away. From now on, Netanyahu will be gauged on the basis of his good behavior and flattery vis-à-vis the president. He will have to practice this new relationship, in which America is the omnipotent superpower and Israel is a tiny, fragile satellite state.”

While Netanyahu may be shaking in his boots in Washington, Israelis have a new bogeyman to frighten them in the form of Yahya Sinwar, the new leader of Hamas, a man who, the papers reports, does not eff around.

Israel Hayom’s front page calls his victory a “win for extremists” implying that the right-wing paper believes the Hamas terror group has a moderate element, which hasn’t quite been borne out in its reporting.

Referring to Sinwar as a serial killer, the paper quotes a Hamas member who reports that the new leader had final say over which prisoners got released in the Gilad Shalit swap of 2011.

“He has a coldblooded look in his eyes,” the Hamas person is quoted saying. “One look is enough to understand that it’s best not to mess with him.”

Haaretz quotes another source in Gaza attempting to calm frayed nerves over Sinwar’s appointment, saying even if he’s a classic villain, he won’t have much power.

“We must remember that Hamas is a very hierarchical organization. Sanwar will not have free rein and will have to answer to the politburo. Though the fact that he controls Gaza from the inside [while the politburo sits abroad] does have significance,” the source is quoted saying.

As if Israelis don’t have enough to fear with rockets and tunnels and Trump tweets, a collapsing crane in Bat Yam Monday provides yet another kind of fright in Tuesday’s papers.

Israel Hayom calls the fact nobody was killed “a miracle” and says investigators are still unsure what caused the incident.

“An initial probe has found that the crane was erected two weeks ago. One of the directions the investigation will focus on is how well rules were followed and the possibility that it did not undergo the necessary safety checks, including checking whether the ground can hold the crane,” the paper reports, adding that there are safety complaints against 22 of the 50 companies that operate cranes.

In Yedioth, crane operator Katie Dubok, who appeared just a few days ago on Channel 2 warning about crane safety, pens a column saying that she had tried warn about the dangers.

“We report all the time of problems and safety issues at the construction site. We call the Labor Ministry, but everyone passes the buck until the police close the case for lack of public interest,” she writes. “Many of the cranes we operate are dozens of years old, a kind of ticking time bomb. And nobody cares. When we complain, they shut us up. But maybe now someone will start to listen.”