Gavin Gross, a New York native who now lives in Israel, is a former director of public affairs at the British Zionist Federation, and is a member of HonestReporting’s Israeli amutah (non-profit governing committee).
Anyone who has visited or studied Israel knows that it can be a very tempestuous and argumentative place, with a wide range of hotly expressed opinions. Members of Israel’s national parliament, the Knesset, often descend into finger pointing and shouting during fierce debates. In the same way, Israel’s media shares a similar reputation for its boisterous, wide-ranging and no-holds-barred approach to reporting, politics and opinion.
Despite this, the New York Times recently published an opinion piece by Ruth Margalit which makes serious allegations about Israel’s media landscape, entitled “How Benjamin Netanyahu Is Crushing Israel’s Free Press.”
Is that a fair and accurate assessment, or wildly exaggerated?
While there are some troubling issues (more on that below), Margalit’s wrong on several counts.
On the battle for control over Israel's media. My piece in @nytimes @nytopinion https://t.co/sYOhSP46bJ
— Ruth Margalit (@ruthmargalit) July 31, 2016
First, the use of the harsh word “crushing” in the headline is alarming, though it’s uncertain whether Ms. Margalit or the Times editorial staff chose it. On July 27th, several days before Margalit’s column appeared, the New York Times reported that the Turkish government ordered the shutdown of 45 newspapers, 3 news agencies, 16 television channels, 15 magazines, and 29 publishers. The mass arrests of journalists and closure of over 100 media outlets are simply incomprehensible in the Israeli context.
Was the use of the verb “crushing” meant to evoke in readers’ minds an equivalence between Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel and Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey in its treatment of the media?
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Second, Margalit asserts that “an atmosphere of intimidation has begun to take hold in many, if not most, of the country’s newsrooms.”
The very day after her article appeared, however, the left-wing newspaper Haaretz published a column by Gideon Levy called “Stop Living in Denial, Israel Is An Evil State” in which he described Israeli government policies as “Evil. Pure evil. Sadistic evil.”
Does this sound like a newspaper being crushed by Netanyahu? In an “atmosphere of intimidation,” as Margalit claims, would a columnist dare write and a publisher dare print such an attack?
Though it has a relatively small domestic circulation in Hebrew, Haaretz has an influence far greater than its numbers. It publishes both print and online English editions, which are read by foreign diplomats, journalists and NGO workers, and its stories are often picked up by the international media.
Third, Margalit attacks what she reports as the “outsize influence” of the free daily newspaper Israel Hayom (“Israel Today”), which is now the largest circulation paper in the country. It is owned and subsidized by the wealthy American businessman Sheldon Adelson and is indeed known for taking a strongly pro-Netanyahu editorial line.
However, Margalit massively overstates her case.
According to circulation data, Israel Hayom has a 40 percent market share, but it’s very closely followed by its fierce competitor Yediot Ahronot (owned by Israeli media mogul Arnon Moses) with a 35 percent share, a paper which Margalit admits has historically taken a “decidedly anti-Netanyahu line.” Thus the two largest Israeli newspapers by circulation consist of one that is pro-Netanyahu and one of nearly equivalent size that is anti-Netanyahu. That doesn’t reflect any papers being crushed.
Fourth, Margalit attacks Netanyahu, who in addition to being Prime Minister also serves as Communications Minister, for replacing the director-general of the communications ministry and installing his own appointee. The director-general serves as the professional manager of the ministry’s operations.
Margalit calls this a “seemingly small but unusual step,” but it’s actually not unusual at all. The Jerusalem Post’s editor Yaakov Katz, in a retort to Margalit’s article, says that the appointment of a new director-general “is standard practice” in Israel with the appointment of a new minister, and lists just some of the ministries that also received new directors-general after the 2015 elections: Social Affairs and Social Services, Health, Construction and Housing, and Defense.
Troubling Instances
This is not to say that there are no troubling instances of government attempts to influence news coverage in Israel. In July, after the popular Galei Tzahal (“Army Radio”) broadcast a program featuring the works of Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman called in the station’s head to complain about the decision (“Liberman summons Army Radio director over program on Palestinian poet”).
In addition, there was fierce infighting at a recent cabinet meeting discussing the introduction of a new national public broadcaster to replace the old Israel Broadcasting Authority, which was viewed as bureaucratic, inefficient and outdated. The Knesset passed a law creating the new broadcaster in 2014 and protected it from political meddling, according to The Times of Israel’s senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur, by “severely limiting the ability of politicians to appoint its senior staff or interfere with reportage,” and giving it a “legally mandated independence.”
However, this new corporation has been criticized by some government ministers, and its launch keeps getting delayed. A transcript of the closed cabinet meeting on July 31st was leaked and obtained by Channel 2 News, which promptly published it the same day, saying a lot about Israel’s feisty, free and un-crushed media. Culture Minister Miri Regev of the ruling Likud party told the cabinet, “What’s the point of this corporation if we don’t control it? The [communications] minister [Netanyahu] should control it. What, we’re going to put money into it and then they’ll broadcast whatever they want?”
Did Regev’s comments about controlling the new broadcaster receive a favorable reception from her fellow cabinet ministers? Far from it. She was attacked mercilessly. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) fired back angrily, “You have control over plays at Habima [theater] or any theater that gets state money?” At a later press briefing, Prime Minister Netanyahu also said he “did not share” Regev’s view that the government should control the content of news broadcasts.
Also hitting back, the Likud’s Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel said the government was establishing a public broadcaster, not a mouthpiece, and would thus not have a say in professional appointments or the content of broadcasts. The next day, Gamliel went even further in her stinging criticism of Miri Regev, telling Army Radio:
“Some of the statements yesterday bordered on fascism, no doubt. We should keep in mind that we are a democratic state and that this is the primary element that outlines our overall conduct. As soon as you claim that we, in the public system, are setting up a public corporation, and that we, as the government, need to control it — it is frightening to think that these things are said in this day and age.”
Returning to the broad theme of Margalit’s piece, she contends that Benjamin Netanyahu uses all kinds of undue pressure to influence Israeli media coverage. He likes positive stories in the media and dislikes critical ones, and tries to spin coverage in his favor. Can we name a single Western politician that feels otherwise? Closer to home, Margalit could have cited the Obama Administration’s massive effort to influence American media coverage of its controversial nuclear agreement with Iran.
In an astonishing profile in May in the New York Times, President Obama’s communications advisor Ben Rhodes openly bragged of how he spun a narrative about the Iran deal that was fed to friendly reporters and organizations, who the White House then relied on to write and tweet about it so that it was picked up by other media.
Describing this careful manipulation, Rhodes said “we created an echo chamber” of reporters who became cheerleaders for the deal. Rhodes then displayed his contempt for that same press corps by telling his interviewer:
“All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus. Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
Coming back to Israel’s media scene, the Jerusalem Post’s editor Yaakov Katz rebuked Margalit’s claims and summarized the situation as follows:
“Let me offer another version of reality by a member of the ‘free press’ which is apparently being crushed by Netanyahu: Does Israel’s democracy have problems? Yes. Does the prime minister’s fixation with the media concern me at times? Yes. But does it make me feel like we are not free? No.”
This appears to be a more accurate and nuanced picture of Israel’s media than the horrific crushing that Ruth Margalit paints.
Featured image: Vector Trash Can by Vecteezy; Levy CC BY-NC Flavio~; Rhodes via YouTube/The Foundry Blog;
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