There’s Too Much Speech in Israel! - by Matthew Continetti

The Israeli left cannot accept that their country is far less isolated, far more stable, far more liberal, and far more democratic than it has been in decades. Israel is not only secure. It has also withstood efforts to isolate it internationally even as its economy grows and diversifies, its population increases, its culture matures, its society variegates. Israeli media have long been the left’s redoubt, but here, too, the walls are crumbling, they are losing their grip, and they can’t stand it. Margalit quotes a journalist who says, “Sometimes competition is the refuge of the antidemocrat.” How incredibly wrong that is. The last refuge of the antidemocrat isn’t competition. It’s the New York Times.

Matthew Continetti..
Commentary Magazine..
11 August '16..

Over summer vacation, the New York Times ran an essay by U.S.-based Israeli writer Ruth Margalit. Headlined “How Benjamin Netanyahu Is Crushing Israel’s Free Press,” the article accused Netanyahu of attempting “to control the country’s pages and airwaves” while engaging in “a broader attack” on “Israel’s democratic institutions.” Netanyahu, we are led to believe, exercises a Svengali-like hold over the Israeli media, intimidating reporters and editors and broadcasters and shaping the news to further his agenda and ambitions. So terrifying has the situation become, it would seem, that Israeli journalists must turn to the most influential newspaper in the world to have their voices heard.

Finished laughing? For anyone even remotely familiar with the Israeli media landscape, Margalit’s charges are absurd. But they are also deeply revealing—of a bankrupt Israeli left that is powerless, isolated, unpopular, unlamented, and vengeful. Defeated at the polls, the left in Israel mobilizes external pressure—the diaspora, J Street, President Obama, the U.N., nongovernmental organizations, foreign press—to compel the Israeli government to enact the very policies the Israeli public rejects. It is a strategy of delegitimization, of convincing world opinion, such as it is, that Israel is neither liberal nor democratic and therefore undeserving of moral sanction, foreign aid, and other forms of diplomatic support.

(Continue to Full Article)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Surprise? Jumbled, Incoherent New York Times Op-Ed Slams Netanyahu - by Ricki Hollander

New York Times editors insist that an op-ed contributor "never gets to choose the headline." It is The Times' own staff who create and approve the headline. This begs the question of whether editors came up with a headline, then deliberately overlooked the illogic, contradictions and overall incoherence of the column in order to publish another anti-Netanyahu piece supporting their own attempts to smear the Israeli leader.

Ricki Hollander..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
01 August '16..

The editors of The New York Times Op-Ed page have declared that facts in op-ed submissions "must be supported and validated." They also claim to edit opinion columns that are "jumbled and disorderly" to clarify the arguments.

But they were either sound asleep on the job or decided to abandon these imperatives when they approved for publication the newspaper's latest opinion piece slamming Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Here the case against Netanyahu – made by free-lance journalist Ruth Margalit, who describes herself as "an Israeli writer living in New York" – was comprised of unsubstantiated accusations, self-contradictory assertions, and a jumble of unrelated non-sequiturs and innuendo – all under the rubric "How Benjamin Netanyahu Is Crushing Israel's Free Press."

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Sorry, ‘NY Times,’ But Israel’s Press Is Doing Just Fine - by Liel Leibovitz

...It’s sad to see a reporter who should’ve known better abandon any attempt at insight or nuance and turn instead to the Times for the most banal sort of affirmation, and it’s sad to see the Times continue to publish such drivel without attempting any real depth or understanding. Nevermind, and godspeed: Keep your opinion pages, which, like your opinions, are but sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing.

Liel Leibovitz..
Tablet Magazine..
01 August '16..

Did you hear the one about the Middle Eastern country that really cracked down on its freedom of the press? Not Turkey, where 42 journalists were arrested last week in the latest assault on the tenets of democracy; I’m talking, of course, about Israel, the subject of yet another grim opinion piece this weekend in The New York Times.

In case you’re the sort who doesn’t read much past the headline, the Times made sure you would not walk away confused: The lengthy dirge, written by New York-based Israeli reporter Ruth Margalit, was titled “How Benjamin Netanyahu is Crushing Israel’s Free Press.”

How indeed? You would hardly believe the depraved things Jerusalem’s demonic despot would do to solidify his grasp on power. Bibi, Margalit solemnly informs us, appoints people who agree with him politically to key positions in government. Shocked yet? Get this: He also has his office call newspapers and websites and try to spin the news in his favor.

If such benighted moves fail to shake you to the core, if you still don’t feel the chill of fascism’s shadow, Margalit has one last bit of damning evidence for you. Take a deep breath: To crush the precious freedom flower that is Israel’s press, Bibi, that monster, is opening up the media market to more competition.

(Continue to Full Post)

Liel Leibovitz is a senior writer for Tablet Magazine.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Headline says Bibi is "crushing Israel's free press" - article itself proves otherwise - Elder of Ziyon

...So, there you have it. Free speech is being "crushed" by Bibi while a vibrant, free press continues to attack him with no fear - and that free press is documented in the very article that claims the opposite. Words have no meaning any more when dealing with Israel.

Elder of Ziyon..
31 July '16..

The headline in the New York Times says "How Benjamin Netanyahu Is Crushing Israel’s Free Press."

So how is Israel's free press being "crushed"?

The article gives exactly three examples:

1. The Israel Hayom newspaper is unabashedly (and embarrassingly) pro-Bibi. While it might chill any staffers on the paper from writing anything against the prime minister, that does not "crush" Israel's free press.

2. Walla News became more pro-Netanyahu when its parent company, the Bezeq communications company, benefited from some government legislation.

3. The government has tried to open up TV channels to more competition, which is regarded by the op-ed writer as a cynical ploy to kill networks that Bibi doesn't like.

So how is the Israeli press responding to being "crushed"?

Although for years the most widely read daily, Yediot Ahronot, and its owner took a decidedly anti-Netanyahu line, claims of left-wing bias fall flat these days, when most Israelis are getting their news from Israel Hayom or Walla News, and when the only remaining liberal bastion — Haaretz — struggles to stay afloat. And yet Mr. Netanyahu continues to present himself as a victim of a vindictive press.

But Yediot is still around. Haaretz is still around. No one is pressuring them to change their editorial line. The success of Israel Hayom and the poor performance of Haaretz have nothing to do with governmental policies, and everything to do with Israelis considering Haaretz to be way too far left and Israel Hayom being free.

There must be more evidence for this crushing of free press , right?

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

A smear of Israel that boggles the mind

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
01 May '13..

Freedom House released its annual report on press freedom throughout the world today at an event sponsored by the Newseum in Washington. But along with the usual and appropriate condemnations of dictatorships and totalitarian states, the group decided to slam the one democracy in the Middle East as well as one of the few states in the region where press freedom actually exists: Israel.

Karin Karleklar, the organization’s project direct for monitoring press freedom, told an audience at the Newseum streamed live over the Internet this morning that Israel’s status was being downgraded from “free” to “partly free.” This is astonishing by itself, but the bizarre nature of this judgment is only made clear when one hears the reasons. Two of the reasons stated by Karleklar—the indictment of a journalist for possessing stolen classified materials and the problems that one television station has had in getting its license renewed—are hardly violations of freedom but do speak to issues that could be misinterpreted as tyrannical if they were discussing a country where there wasn’t a vibrant free press. But the third is so absurd as to call into question not merely the judgment but the impartiality of the entire report.

The report claims that the appearance on the scene of Israel Hayom, a relatively new Israeli newspaper, is a threat to press freedom because it is a success that has hurt the business prospects of its competitors. No, you didn’t misread that sentence. Freedom House is taking the position that the fact that Israel Hayom has claimed an impressive share of the hyper-competitive newspaper market is undermining the freedom of the press. The justification for this ridiculous claim is that Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul and well-known contributor to Republican candidates, has “subsidized” the paper and that its editorial line favors Prime Minister Netanyahu. The paper, which is distributed free of charge, is now the most-read paper in Israel, a state of affairs which Freedom House not unreasonably connects to the demise of Maariv, a longtime mainstay of the Hebrew daily press. But the question readers of this report have to ask is what in the name of Joseph Pulitzer does the ability of Adelson’s paper to succeed where many other print papers are failing have to do with freedom of the press?

Big Media Kvetches About Israeli Press Freedom, Ignores Hamas Restrictions

Honest Reporting/Backspin
18 July '10

Two Palestinian press photographers covering weekend West Bank clashes were wounded by the IDF. According to the Jerusalem Post:

The photographers were said to be among the protesters, making it difficult to pick them out.

Here's what's known about the incident: One of the photographers worked for AFP. And the Foreign Press Association issued a statement suggesting that Israel's Border Police are getting too rough, then sniffed:

We would appreciate it were the authorities to remind the various forces involved, that open, unhindered coverage of news events is a widely acknowledged part of the essence of democracy.

Everyone knows how these protests work. Scripted clashes and grandstanding for the cameras have been the modus operendi for years.

It's always the same: Palestinians start protesting, at first peacefully. Gradually, the situation escalates till soldiers are forced to fire rubber bullets and tear gas to protect themselves and disperse the crowd. The violent images are the ones you always see in the news.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.