By Seth J. Frantzman

Israel is entering the period before Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish new year. With the new year coming the country once again has to suffer through, and look back on years of suffering, a predictable news cycle. There are only so many stock stories that can be produced by the media. News is driven by “media waves,” in which a story grows and grows until here is a flooding of the news cycle and the wave breaks. Then it is forgotten, until the next tidal swell. This list isn’t to make fun of the very real people involved in the news or harmed by the events reported in it, but to show how rarely some major issues are actually addressed, and how some click-bait headlines seem to come back every cycle.

So how does  the predictable news cycle work?

Here is a basic run-down of the headlines:

Religious rabbinate scandal (choose one: Kashrut, conversions, corruption)

OMG, Iranian threat! (Choose one: Nuclear weapons, Hezbollah, Syria, boats)

Peace talk (This (fill in the blank political party) met with Abbas and boo-hoo, nothing came of it)

Two state solution (Choose someone in the government, made shocking comments saying the two state solution is dead)

Things are too expensive in Israel (Choose one: Housing, food, cars)

OMG anti-Israel crazy person (Choose one: Some obscure academic speaks at Nakba rally, a pro-Palestinian theatre play paid for by YOUR tax shekels, radical BDS activist denied entry)

The Kotel is in CRISES!!! (Choose one: Government betrays Diaspora, Diaspora threatens Israel, Supreme Court rules on something, government bumbles again)

A BRAND NEW amazing centrist political party (Choose a former associate of Benjamin Netanyahu to head it, write headline predicting how it will win)

New political survey shows Netanyahu still popular (Prime Minister will stay in power forever)

Natural disaster and the government didn’t plan for it (Choose one: Chemical spill, fires, dust from Egypt)

Kotel scandal again (Choose one: Women of the Wall did something new, people subjected to searches, people arrested, Haredim riot for some reason)

Terror attack

Gaza is in crises (Choose one: Overpopulation, pollution, electricity)

Palestinian Authority threatens to dissolve

Jordan condemns Israeli actions in Jerusalem

The UN condemns Israel (Choose one: Settlements, human rights violations, home demolitions)

There is a crises in the Negev (Choose one: Demographics, beduin, demolitions)

Israel helped some obscure group somewhere, feel good today: (Choose one: India, Syria, South America)

Israeli wines from settlements are being labelled, oh no! (Choose one: In Europe, Canada, Australia)

Israel signs amazing defense contract with some new ally abroad (Choose one: Kenya, India, Bulgaria)

A foreign leader is coming to Israel to save it from itself with new peace process: (Choose one: France, UK, US)

There is a crises in the diaspora, less of them support Israel (Choose one: UK, US, Canada)

An illegal outpost has been evacuated (Choose one: In Judea, Samaria or the West Bank)

There are more people in Israel this year, population statistics

A new high-tech exit, someone got rich!

Will there be a new intifada? (probably not)

OMG Miri Regev said this! (Choose one: Insulted artists, angered writers, annoyed academics)

Oh no, the ethnic demon again (Choose one: Racism against Mizrahim, Ashkenazi excuses for racism, there is no ethnic demon but let’s talk about it)

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