by Gil Ronen
Sivan 21, 5769
(IsraelNN.com) Independent journalist Yoav Yitzchak, owner and editor-in-chief of the Hebrew-language news website News1, launched an unusually harsh broadside against the senior columnists in Israel’s three veteran newspapers – Nachum Barne’a of Yediot Acharonot, Ben Caspit of Maariv and Yoel Marcus of Haaretz. He called on Israelis to stop buying these newspapers.
“Whoever reads and follows the printed media in Israel these days could get the mistaken impression that the central columnists are not Israeli-Zionist journalists, but foreigners “planted” in the media by U.S. President Hussein (Barack) Obama’s men,” Yitzchak wrote.
The maverick investigative journalist, who has hounded many leading politicans to the end of their careers, added that “He who reads the empty words written by supposedly senior writers, like Hussein (Nachum) Barne’a, Hussein (Yoel) Marcus and Hussein (Ben) Caspit, could mistakenly think that the newspapers they write for are just extensions of the White House Press Center, which are entrusted with representing the policy of the Obama administration in Israel.”
“These writers and newspapers preach almost daily the need to accept Obama’s plan and implement it immediately, and for Netanyahu to retreat from his promises to the public,” Yitzchak complained. “The contempt for Netanyahu and for what he represents supercedes even their duty to act according to journalistic values and hold truth sacred.”
Demeaning Israel
There is no point in quoting their articles, an exasperated Yitzchak said. “They write in a way that demeans the state of Israel, the will of the citizens and Netanyahu in particular. Those newspapers serve as a de-facto opposition to both the government of Israel and the citizens of Israel. And so, in place of a fair and serious press that presents information as it is, we are ‘stuck’ with a tendentious press which engages in information profiteering and serves a diplomatic agenda which is more acceptable in some of the moderate Arab states [than in Israel].”
The leading pundits ignore the fact that the Israeli public voted for the right-wing parties, Yitzchak said, and that this public “expects them to carry out their plans, including large-scale construction, at least in the settlement blocs.” They make fun of Netanyahu but adulate Obama, even when he treats the Prime Minister of Israel in a humiliating fashion – talking to Netanyahu from his Presidential chair with his shoes on the Presidential desk – and tries to dictate to Netanyahu and the entire State of Israel a diplomatic plan that involves creating a Palestinian state,” despite the fact that Hamas controls Gaza and Iran constitutes a clear and present existential danger.
The only way to stop this evil phenomenon, Yitzchak concluded, is for newspaper readers to take real steps against these writers and newspapers, and to stop buying newspapers that do not maintain an Israel-Zionist-Jewish identity.
Under media occupation
Yitzchak's tirade against his comrades is reminiscent of a similar article by another independent writer, Arab affairs expert Dr. Guy Bechor. Writing in his website last September, Bechor contended that Israel was under "media occupation."
"At its core, the media in Israel is not elected and does not change," Bechor explained. "It is made up of several 'gurus' who carry on for decades, without any real change in its personal makeup."
The media in Israel, he emphasized, "has turned into an active political force that serves as a substitute for the political parties of the past. The more the Left in Israel shrank in size, the greater its influence became in the media, although [this influence] was always hidden and camouflaged."
"Thus the Israeli media crossed the lines, and moved away from its western counterparts," he accused. "Thus it also betrayed the Israeli public, which expected, and expects to this day, that it will cover events."
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