Right Wing Attitudes Toward the Israeli Media
By Yarden Morad
Throughout the Western world, we are living through a time of resurgence for populist movements and autocratic leaders. In almost every western nation, a populist candidate has won a recent election or has been a major contender for power. In some countries, like Hungary and Poland, political scientists say that democratic backsliding is taking place.
In these countries, in addition to the anti-immigration and anti-trade policy ideas, there is resentment and anger directed at educated counsel. We saw it during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S, when Republican voters were much less trustful of the scientific advice offered by public health officials. We also saw it in Brexit, in which the consensus among experts was that such a move will hurt the U.K. economy.
In Israel, that same attitude is being directed at the media and justice system. Right wing Israeli politicians consistently express their feelings of perceived mistreatment by these systems, saying that they are controlled by the left. I will focus on the media industry in this piece.
Since the 90s, Netanyahu has tried to stir anger toward the Israeli media in his right wing base. In the 1999 election, he made a famous speech when he said repeatedly about the media “They’re afraid, they’re afraid.” Some media observers did say that Netanyahu, at the time, lacked favorable news outlets to his political ideology and messaging. Netanyahu ended up losing the election by a large margin.
In 2005, 6 years after Netanyahu’s loss in 1999, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government decided to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Right wing observers said that the media didn’t challenge the move, despite mass protests by right-wing and settlement supporters that tried to stop it from happening. The withdrawal plan created a split in Likud that caused Sharon to break it up and establish the centrist party “Kadima” (forward), which had both right and left leaning figures. A tragic event followed — less than 3 months before the election, Sharon had a stroke that he never recovered from. In the 2006 election, the Likud party headed by Netanyahu received just 12 seats, a low, because of a split in Likud and the spirit of Sharon, which was still present. After two humiliating defeats and rising right wing discontent with institutions, Netanyahu figured he had to have his own media outlet. The internet was still young and immature, so a paper was founded.
“Israel Hayom” (Israel Today) was created in July 2007, with the backing of American gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson, who was also a major Republican donor. The paper was a freesheet in a tabloid format, meant to compete against the dominant “Yediot Ahronot’’ (“recent reports” in Hebrew) which was considered a monopoly at the time by Israeli regulators. The two papers were catering to the working and middle classes, while Haaretz and Makor Rishon catered to the elites. Israel Hayom hit Yediot hard, causing print advertising rates to fall dramatically by selling advertising space for pennies on the dollar in comparison to Yediot. In addition, because it was distributed free of charge, it was also widely read. At its peak in 2015, the paper was printing 365,000 copies daily and 550,000 on weekends, according to its own figures. It is also a money losing operation, with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses over the years (above 200 million from 2007 to 2014 alone). As for Adelson himself, in an interview to “Israel Hayom” in 2014, he said that he established the paper after he and his wife witnessed how the “media is not telling us the truth.” Later in the interview, he said he offered to the publisher and owner of Yediot Ahronot to shut down his paper in exchange for a shift to the right in Yediot’s stances. In a separate interview to channel 2 in 2013, he described Yediot’s biases as being unfavorable toward Netanyahu.
In the television and radio spaces, the right wing shift took more time and effort. Throughout the 2010s, Netanyahu allies managed to put many new right wing voices in TV and radio stations and some journalists rose on their own. Most notable is Amit Segal on channel 12, the most watched channel in Israel. He became a star by offering right wing political commentary. He criticizes the media and the justice system frequently and identifies proudly as a right winger. He also has a column in Yediot Aharonot’s weekend commentary section. Another example is Yaakov (Jacob) Bardugo, a former Likud operative, who managed to get the powerful 5 PM slot on the army radio. He rose to prominence fast, offering very pro-Netanyahu commentary. Some journalists argued that he was getting his talking points for the day straight from the Likud party. Many other journalists decided to “uncover” themselves as right wingers or to pursue stories that would be favorable to the right. Experienced journalist Ayala Hason decided to launch a crusade against the justice system. Avishay Ben Haim decided to be unapologetically pro Netanyahu and has been one of his main supporters in Bibi’s corruption trials.
In addition, left leaning journalists have received threats and even had to be protected by guards as a result of right wing hatred and anger. In late 2016, after an investigative report into the prime minister’s inner circle by Ilana Dayan on channel 12’s investigative program “Uvda” (“fact” in Hebrew), Netanyahu lashed out at her, calling her a “Far left figure”, saying that she can’t accept the will of the people that chose Netanyahu. Netanyahu further said that “the people” had lost faith in the mainstream media.
Guy Peleg, justice correspondent for channel 12, had to be guarded after he exposed transcripts of the Netanyahu investigations in the cases he was later indicted on and matters involving Netanyahu’s family. He was also harassed by Netanyahu’s son, Yair. Amnon Abramovich, channel 12’s leading political analyst in addition to Segal, was harassed when he attended and reported on a Netanyahu rally in Tel Aviv in 2020, and had to be escorted with the help of the police. One protester called him ”you are a dirty burned (person),” referencing the fact that Abramovich’s face bears a burn mark from an injury he sustained during the Yom Kippur war in 1973. Furthermore, before the first election in 2019, anonymous billboards featuring liberal media figures went up featuring the message “they will not decide” — in reference to Netanyahu’s criminal cases. A Haaretz investigation later showed that the digital campaign had targeted people who follow Netanyahu on Facebook. There is no doubt that this kind of messaging has reached the mind of the protester who cursed Abramovich.
As you can see, the right has major discontents with the media. As a result, media entrepreneurship in the form of a new television channel was taking place. A tycoon with connections to Netanyahu launched a right wing news channel, “Now 14,” that would air next to the mainstream channels 12 and 13. The number of the channel, although it seems archaic, has huge implications. Given the channel’s relative proximity to established news outlets, people can easily find themselves in the hands of the Israeli version of Fox News. This is unprecedented. Mainstream Israeli television is still being consumed by both sides of the political divide, unlike in the United States. A media fragmentation in the form of a successful channel 14, which we are starting to see evidence of, would transform Israeli politics into a much more divisive and polarized place than it already is. In a way, this possibility aligns with right wing ambitions. Netanyahu and right wing intellectual leaders tend to view traditional media with a very negative lens, as do other right wing populists worldwide. This would be a redemption for them. There would be no regard for the truth and no integrity, and instead, there would merely be a zone in which you can shape the minds of your voters and prepare them for the next election or public debate.
The next government can potentially interfere with state owned media, which currently has editorial independence. State owned media is dominant in the radio space, in which the two main news stations are state owned, the Army Radio and the Public broadcaster’s Kan Bet. Kan 11, the public broadcaster, has additional radio stations and a television channel as well. If the Likud government decides to change the laws regarding these state owned media outlets, it would have major implications for the media at large. Miri Regev, A Likud MP and former culture minister, famously said a few years ago about the public broadcaster: ”What is it worth if we don’t control it?, “‘we” meaning Likud and the right.
In addition, potentially, a right wing government can use state advertising budgets as a leverage on media outlets. If the outlet is critical of the government, the government could withdraw valuable advertising revenue. As my previous article on Ben-Gvir mentioned, the idea of loyalty to the state is very powerful and common in the Israeli right. Why should the government, the reasoning goes, then spend money on “enemy of the state” outlets?
We might also see an increase in self censorship by journalists who are afraid of the barrage of threats that the right wing media machine would inflict on them. Rina Matzlich, a well known channel 12 journalist who has anchored the Israeli version of “Meet The Press” for years, has recently retired from the channel. In a comment about her move, she said that threats from the right after controversial comments she has made had made her lose interest in journalism.
To conclude, Israeli right wing parties and Netanyahu have long felt deep discontent with the media industry, as have many populists around the world. As a result, the new right wing government may have enduring impacts on the media in Israel, which can include interfering with state owned outlets, increased right wing media entrepreneurship, threats that would make journalists self censor themselves, and withdrawal of state advertising budgets.
