Why I just subscribed to Haaretz

Last week the Israeli government ordered a boycott of Haaretz by government officials and anyone working for a government-funded body, and banned government advertising with Israel’s longest-running newspaper. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi proposed the resolution based on what he called the publication’s “defeatist and false propaganda” against the state of Israel during wartime. He alleges that some of Haaretz’s articles may even have “crossed the criminal threshold.”

The government’s longstanding antipathy toward Haaretz was translated into action after a speech by Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken in London, in which he said that the Netanyahu government “doesn’t care about imposing a cruel apartheid regime on the Palestinian population. It dismisses the costs to both sides for defending the [West Bank] settlements while fighting the Palestinian freedom fighters that Israel calls terrorists.”

As a longtime researcher of terrorism, I was appalled by Schocken defining Hamas murderous terrorists as “freedom fighters.” I wasn’t alone. Schocken was criticized in his own newspaper by staff journalists who wrote they “unequivocally oppose the notion that terrorists, regardless of who they are, should be considered freedom fighters.” Leonid Nevzlin, one of the owners of Haaretz, wrote that Schocken’s statements were “appalling, unacceptable and inhumane,” saying they contradict “the values of the newspaper, my personal beliefs, and the principles of the overwhelming majority of journalists and the editorial team.”

Get The Jewish Chronicle Weekly Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

Moreover, Schocken himself issued an apology: “I have reconsidered what I said. To be clear, Hamas are not freedom fighters. October 7 was a shocking event, and in an article in the newspaper I wrote that the initiators and perpetrators should be severely punished.”

The Union of Journalists in Israel issued a statement stressing that the government’s decision was “intended to harm the freedom of expression of dozens of journalists at the newspaper, intended to sow fear and awe among journalists who do their jobs faithfully and serve a large readership.” Indeed, the decision to punish Haaretz is only the tip of the iceberg, one of a long series of moves to destroy press freedom in Israel.

Hours after the cabinet voted to boycott Haaretz, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation backed a bill mandating the privatization of the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, which controls the public television and radio networks with extensive digital offerings as well. If the tender for the purchase of the IPBC is not met within two years, the decision effectively closes the public broadcaster. Three weeks ago, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation gave its backing to another bill granting the government increased control over the IPBC’s budget.

There’s yet a third piece of legislation aimed at granting the government oversight of television ratings data, which would allow the communications minister to assume control of the currently independent organization that supplies publishers with this information.

And earlier this year the media market was in turmoil following the unusual appointment of former politician Yulia Shamalov-Berkovich, a figure close to the Prime Minister, as CEO of Channel 13 TV News and concerns about political interference in journalistic content. Journalists at Ch.13, joined by the Journalists’ Union, successfully fought off the appointment.

One is also left to ponder why the private cable TV channel i24 News recently started broadcasting in Hebrew 24/7, including Saturdays (when Channel 14, Netanyahu’s “house” channel, is off the air), while scaling back its English, French and Arabic broadcasts, which so effectively present the Israeli perspective in the international arena.
Oiling the machinery of this hostile takeover of the media is a well-orchestrated and sometimes politically funded smear campaign against individual journalists and media outlets.

Erdogan’s authoritarian playbook
This multipronged assault on the media is not unique to Israel. It takes a page from the authoritarian playbook wherever anti-democratic regimes seek to consolidate power. Turkey, my area of expertise, is a case in point. When President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came into power in 2002, he and his Justice and Development Party set about creating a financial system that seized media companies struggling to repay their debts to the state, and ultimately allocated these outlets to private sector companies allied with the government. Today, more than 85% of Turkey’s private sector national media is controlled by companies that support the government or are bound to it by shared strategic interests.

Erdoğan’s grip on the media includes control over the state TV and radio broadcaster TRT and the National Broadcasting Council, which contributed to his third presidential election victory in May 2023.

Journalists and media outlets face judicial harassment that prevents coverage of the state’s authoritarianism, corruption, political cronyism, and Kurdish issues, and keeps the lid on stories that could embarrass the government and its allies. Of the 131 journalists detained since Erdoğan became president in 2014, at least 40 have been convicted. Turkey has become one of the world’s biggest prisons for journalists.

Media personnel regularly face charges under the country’s terrorism law, such as spreading “propaganda for a terrorist organization” and “exposing a counter-terrorist official to the threat of terrorist organizations.”

The Erdoğan administration has also censored social media platforms. Instagram, for instance, was rendered inaccessible in August on the pretext of “catalog offenses” such as child abuse and drug use, but the ban was imposed after Instagram restricted access to Erdoğan’s condolence messages for the death of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Fortunately, Israel is not yet in Turkey’s dire situation, but if uncontrolled and unrestrained, its government’s policies in the media arena could transform Israel into an authoritarian regime, especially when combined with the challenge to the gatekeepers – the judicial system, the police and the Security Services.

To be sure, I often find myself in profound disagreement with Haaretz, but that is beside the point. The government’s decision against Haaretz is a disgraceful attack on the robust media environment we need here.

I have taken out a subscription in solidarity with all journalists and media who defend the principles of freedom and true
democracy. PJC

Ely Karmon is a senior researcher at The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism and a lecturer at the Reichman University, Herzliya, Israel. This article first appeared on The Times of Israel.