Why is the general press so often left-wing?
This is a question which has clearly tormented Benjamin Netanyahu for a long time, and which is at the heart of his trial, in cases 2000 and 4000. As he himself said from the first day of his testimony in the bar which opened Last week, this concern came from his father, the late Professor Benzion Netanyahu, historian and Revisionist. “My father added to Jabotinsky’s theory the fight for public opinion. To protect a military victory, you need a foreign policy. And to guarantee this policy, you need public opinion. Investing in public opinion is a necessity,” he told the judges.
Sadly ironically, this much-feared testimony in the dock will have at least one positive aspect: it provides Netanyahu, who so often avoids interviews in Hebrew, with a platform of choice to explain his policies to his Israeli compatriots. The fight for public opinion, therefore. From there, Bibi continued, stems his interest in speeches in English before the American Congress or the UN General Assembly. Hence also, what he is accused of, namely his interventions in the editorial line of the Walla website, but not for the reasons that the prosecution believes he knows, the Prime Minister defends himself – in other words, his personal interest – but rather a ideological combat: spreading right-wing ideas. Working on Israeli opinion.
A turning point in the media landscape
The media has always been a favorite subject for Netanyahu. As a young politician, he took the somewhat provincial leaders of Likud by surprise by setting out to conquer the party with new methods of communication imported from the United States, where he grew up. Taking care of his television interventions, he became famous for his oratory formulas. But good speeches will not convince everyone. The Israeli press, long resolutely left-wing, gave him hell. This will be his fight.
In 2009, his return to power was facilitated by the launch, two years previously, of the free daily Israel Hayom, long his most loyal support. Television channel 14 will follow a few years later. Likud’s resounding victory in the 2015 elections also marks an important turning point. This is the beginning of the meteoric rise of commentator Amit Segal who today largely dominates the Israeli media landscape. The other major media will follow by installing right-wing figures in important information slots: Yaakov Bardugo, Inon Magal, Ayala Hasson, Kalman Liberman, etc.
Has perfect parity been achieved? No, and this is what is being criticized today in particular against the public broadcasting service Kan, which the government is threatening to close. Israel is not the only democracy to find that its traditional media are biased, and where the battle for information is fought through large-scale acquisitions by individuals. France has its Vincent Bolloré; the United States has its Jeff Bezos who recently banned the editorial staff of the Washington Post from taking a stand for Kamala Harris, and obviously also its Elon Musk who, by taking over the social network information and largely favored the return of his now associate Donald Trump.
Online debate of ideas
Global trends, therefore, that Netanyahu seems to have grasped in time, especially since he also largely took over social networks, before the rest of the Israeli political class. The 2015-2019-2020 electoral cycles are thus characterized by very broad use on the part of his campaign team. This same Bibi who, at the time did not yet have a Smartphone, performed live shows of historic duration from his Prime Minister’s office with the energy of a young man. As he said last week on the stand: “And then suddenly you do a Facebook live and you get a million views.”
This is perhaps the saddest thing in hindsight about the Netanyahu affairs. Today, the free debate of ideas he desired exists online. In addition to the X platform, the global right is now promoted at full speed by podcasters and independent journalists, who no longer owe anything to traditional newsrooms.
But according to the charges, this same Netanyahu who so often prides himself on anticipating the future and seeing new trends arrive was still busy, in the middle of the 2010s, bargaining to obtain better front pages on Walla, a site that he himself described as obscure in front of the judges, or even trying to soften the tone of the written press commentators at Yediot Aharonot.
Deep down, perhaps Bibi himself believed what was being said about Netanyahu in the press, and wanted to remedy it at all costs. Even if it means going astray.
