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cover of episode What Israelis Are Seeing on TV - EXTENDED VERSION

What Israelis Are Seeing on TV - EXTENDED VERSION

2024/1/16
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Oren Persico
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Michael Loewinger:探讨了以色列媒体在加沙战争期间的报道现状,特别关注主流媒体与社交媒体上呈现出的信息差异,以及由此造成的公众认知偏差。采访了以色列独立调查杂志《第七眼》的撰稿人Oren Persico,深入分析了以色列媒体的运作模式、信息筛选机制以及对公众舆论的影响。 Michael Loewinger还指出了以色列电视媒体在战争初期和后期所扮演的不同角色,以及其在塑造公众认知方面所起到的关键作用。同时,也探讨了以色列媒体对加沙平民伤亡报道的缺失以及对哈马斯相关信息的处理方式。 此外,还分析了以色列媒体中日益增长的军国主义言论和宣传,以及对批评政府或军方行动的记者的报复行为。 Oren Persico:详细描述了以色列媒体格局,特别是主流媒体(如12频道和14频道)以及主要网站(如Ynet)和报纸(如《耶路撒冷邮报》和《国土报》)在战争期间的表现。他指出,由于以色列左翼势力萎缩,《国土报》等左翼媒体的影响力有限。 Oren Persico强调了以色列电视在战争初期发挥的重要作用,以及在战争后期如何通过提升军民士气和避免展示加沙平民伤亡来塑造公众认知。他指出,以色列媒体刻意回避展示加沙平民伤亡的画面,并对来自哈马斯控制的加沙卫生部门的伤亡数字提出质疑,同时忽略了以往冲突中哈马斯和以军伤亡数字的相似性。 他还分析了以色列媒体中日益增长的右翼倾向和宣传,以及对批评政府或军方行动的记者的报复行为,并以具体的例子说明了主流媒体的立场转变和极端言论的泛滥。Oren Persico还谈到了以色列媒体对加沙战争未来走向的报道,以及内塔尼亚胡政府内部对加沙政策的分歧。

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The media landscape in Israel has seen a significant shift with a huge spike in ratings for TV and radio, particularly for Channel 12 and the right-wing Channel 14. Mainstream newspapers like Yediot Ahonot and Haaretz are discussed, with Haaretz seen as a beacon of liberal thought but with diminishing traction among Israeli readers.

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On the show this past week, we aired a conversation with an Israeli journalist named Oren Persico, a staff writer at The Seventh Eye, which is an independent investigative magazine focused on media and freedom of speech in Israel. I spoke to Oren about how despite the fact that nightmarish images of destruction in Gaza have filled the news and social media feeds for the last three months, within Israel, the mainstream media tells a very different story.

There was so much more that didn't make it into the show because of time restrictions. So we're giving you an opportunity to hear a longer version here.

To kick it off, I asked him to give us a lay of the land and also tell us a bit about where Israelis have been getting their news lately. Ever since the war started, there's been a huge spike in ratings in TV and radio. It's like two, maybe three times the amount it was before, mostly on Channel 12. That's the major commercial TV channel in Israel.

You also have Channel 14, which is a right-wing pro-Netanyahu propaganda machine, which became the second most popular TV channel in Israel during the past year, even before the war.

And if you look at the main websites, you'll have Ynet, which is the digital arm of Yediot Ahonot, a very big media corporation in Israel. If you look at the newspapers, you have Israel AYOM, which is a free newspaper.

Yediot Ahonot and Haaretz, which is maybe more well-known outside Israel than it is read inside Israel. Yeah, people always point to it and sort of see it as a beacon of liberal thought in Israel, but you're saying it doesn't have that much traction among Israeli readers. No, that's right. It's because the left in Israel is small and getting smaller all the time. So there's less and less audience for that kind of material.

There was a piece in The Guardian from last weekend that reported that nearly half of Israelis get their news from TV channels and that TV in particular has been hugely influential in shaping Israeli opinion after October 7th. Why has TV in particular been so influential? The very beginning of the war had a huge impact. During the first day, October 7th and probably October 8th and 9th,

The Israeli television really filled in a void that the Israel state left open. A lot of the Israel establishment, of course, the military, but also the health, social welfare, the first aid, it really didn't know how to respond to the massacre. And there was a lot of civil initiatives that filled in the void.

The Israeli television took part in that. You could really hear live on air people asking for help from their shelters, saying, "We can hear Hamas, jihad terrorists outside. They're shooting. Help us."

Israeli TV showed that to the public and later helped those people who ever survived get in contact with their families and loved ones. Israeli television really did outstanding work in the first few days. Ever since, it became a very important factor in shaping the reality in Israel. It sounds like TV journalists really rose to the occasion on and shortly after October 7th.

Since then, though, I wonder how strong their reporting has been. Former National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata has described, quote, a dome of disconnection created by the trauma of October 7th.

with Israelis increasingly feeling isolated from a world that they feel doesn't understand their pain and their fear of Hamas. Yes, I think that's very true. The main two roles of TV journalism in Israel after October 7th

was one to lift the morale of the army, lift the morale of the Israeli public. And the second is to not show anything damaging that's happening in Gaza because of the Israeli bombardment and invasion. The logic here is that if you show civilians in Gaza getting hurt,

then a lot of people in Israel will start questioning the legitimacy of the IDF attacks in Gaza. So you don't show that. The result is that Israel is very much still on October 7th.

And I don't doubt that it would take any nation a long time to heal. I'm surprised, though, to hear that if you turn on Israeli TV, you would not see what we're seeing in the U.S. media, which is brutal footage, a growing death toll and reports about starvation, disease. Are Israelis really not seeing that?

They do see soldiers collapsing buildings and cleaning out terror tunnels that were used by Hamas. They do see a lot of streets that are now rubble. What they don't see is humans in Gaza being killed or wounded, especially women and children. They don't see that at all. Nothing of the human cost that is so horrifying.

Even if you do mention the number of the casualties in Israel, you always say this is the numbers that we get from the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza. And Hamas is a terrorist organization, and you shouldn't trust their numbers. What they never mention is past conflicts in Gaza. If you look at the numbers of Hamas and you look at the numbers of the IDF,

They're roughly the same. There is a difference if you look at the male casualties, 16 to 50 or something like that, the age where you can be a militant. But if you look at the women and children, there's not such big a difference between the numbers that Hamas has and the number that the IDF releases after the war. They just ignore that.

And if you do see footage of shirtless men in Gaza, handcuffed, they would be regarded as terrorists surrendering. And that would be the headline. Perhaps a day or two later, you could see maybe in Haaretz or in the bottom of an article that after interrogation, the IDF found out that most of them weren't terrorists.

But most people would get the feeling that we captured terrorists and the only people still occupying northern Gaza where the invasion started are now terrorists. There's no citizens there. And that's why you can bombard the area without hesitation. OK, but it's 2024 and I know Israelis are on social media. I see TikToks from Israeli soldiers. I see posts from

from Israelis on social media. Surely Israeli citizens are seeing footage of the suffering of Gazans, which is all over the internet, or reports from Western media. It's hard not to find it if you're online. So I find it hard to believe that maybe outside of the legacy media, Israelis aren't exposed to this stuff.

Well, the power of denial is very strong. And if you don't want to know something, even though it pops out that TikTok or Telegram channel or whatever, it's very easy to go past it and go to a video of a fallen soldier's family talking about the soldier or the Israeli victims. There's no lack of material that is pro-Israel and anti-Hamas. It's just a matter of your decision.

Ever since October 7th, you've said nearly all mainstream outlets have started to shift towards the right, or at least have adopted more propaganda. With Channel 14, which is basically an arm of Netanyahu's propaganda machine, still being the most extremist. Can you give me some examples of this wider shift? Right. If you look at the beginning of the war, you could see a lot of right-wing journalists saying we should have...

bombarded the hell out of Gaza, where it doesn't matter how many people would die. Shortly after, you could hear very similar voices in mainstream media, Channel 12, Channel 13. They started interviewing an expert on the Arab world called Eliyahu Yousian. He's an Iranian Jew who

who explained that in the Middle East, you have to act like you're in the Middle East. And if that means killing 50,000 people on the first day, regardless of who they are, that's how you should act, because that would prove that you're serious about keeping your citizens alive. And then you could hear the same logic from Channel 13's head of the Arab Affairs desk, Tzviah Hezkeli,

What you saw, you had very extreme guests that you wouldn't see before on the mainstream media starting popping up on mainstream media. And also the journalists themselves,

getting more and more extreme, calling for harsh retaliation. You could hear there is no innocent people in Gaza. Amit Segal, probably the most prominent journalist in Israel, he's the most popular journalist in Channel 12, which is the most popular channel in Israel. On his Telegram channel, referred to the Hamas or Jihad terrorists as Nazis,

And therefore, the people who support them are also Nazis. And again and again, you could hear the comparison to Dresden. If you fight the Nazis, you have to fight like you're fighting the Nazis. And if the ally forces completely destroyed the city of Dresden, then we can completely destroy the city of Gaza because it's

100% good against 100% evil. It's completely black and white. It's not exactly like Dresden is celebrated today as a discriminant act of warfare, right? No, it's exactly the opposite. This is the moment that there was no consideration of human life, much like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's mentioned also in Israel in the past few weeks. Saying the Americans did it so we can do it too?

Yeah, I mean, who are you to cast doubt on our morality when you did the same when you faced pure evil? That's the logic. I see. Another example of the shift that you're talking about is Israel's top satirical TV show, Eretz Nehedaret. In November, it broadcasts a sketch making fun of pro-Palestinian progressives. ♪

Hi everyone, we are live on YouTube with Columbia Yunti Semedi News where everyone is welcome. LGBTQH. H. Hamas. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Do you know why it's true? Because it rhymes. There have been other English skits mocking BBC journalists for how they've been covering the war.

Good evening from London. Here are some news from the war in Gaza. Israel has bombed a hospital, killing hundreds of innocent people. With more details, our Middle East correspondent, Harry Whitegilt. Good evening, Rachel, from the illegal colony of Tel Aviv. This was odd for people who are familiar with the show, I think, because Eretz Nehederet used to be known for mocking Netanyahu and the Israeli government. Is this shift symbolic as well?

They're still mocking Netanyahu, but they are mobilized, like most of the other people in Israel, to support the war and the war effort. If a satirical show needs to do hazbara, which is Israeli propaganda, then that's what they'll do. They're completely with the mission to explain why the world is wrong, and we are right. And you mentioned before the dome of disconnection.

People in Israel are shocked that the world doesn't see the situation like they see it. They are shocked and baffled. How could anyone be angry at Israel and speaking about atrocities that Israel does,

when Hamas butchered and raped and killed so many people in Israel on October 7th. Because they're still on October 7th, they don't realize that the world saw different images in the past few weeks.

I'm curious, the passion with which you speak makes me think that you inhabit a different kind of ideological perspective. You're consuming different media than the average Israeli. You are a media critic, but I'm just curious to know, like, where you see yourself in the media landscape. How common is the perspective that you are sharing right now?

It's not very common. Like I said, the Israeli left is small and getting smaller. But if you do read Haaretz, you get the information. And there's still tens of thousands of subscribers to Haaretz. A lot of them are decision makers, people in the government, the intellectual elite. But I would say that this point of view is considered fringe in Israel these days, almost treacherous. Hmm.

I want to dig in a bit more into pro-militaristic language propaganda that has become more common. You've also seen claims that the IDF has to bomb Gaza because the entire Gazan population supports Hamas. I've also seen a different narrative, which is that Israel needs to save Gazans from Hamas and that, yes, they are victims, but they are trapped there.

Well, I think what you see here is the difference between the extreme right and the center right in Israel. The extreme right really treats all of Gazans as terrorists, and therefore they should be killed. You know, on Channel 14's homepage, they have a counter counting the number of Palestinians, Gazans dying, and it's updated regularly. The thing is, they count everyone, everyone as terrorists.

The number of terrorists that have been killed so far in Gaza, it doesn't matter if it's a child or a woman or a man or an elderly man. So that's the extreme right. But in the center right, there is sort of a moral conflict about what Israel does. They don't want to see the images. They don't want to know the numbers.

One of the legitimization techniques that they have to persuade themselves that Israel is the good guy here is that we're helping innocent Gazans overthrow a violent dictatorship, which is Hamas, which, of course, Hamas is a violent dictatorship. And the question is, how do you help the Gazans overthrow it?

Some of this discourse is so extreme that it's since been cited by South Africa in its 84-page appeal to the International Court of Justice, alleging that Israel's military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide.

That hearing started at The Hague on Thursday, and Channel 14 is cited six times in the appeal, including the statements of a media personality that you've identified, Eliyahu Yossein, who said that, quote, there are no innocents. There is no population. There are 2.5 million terrorists.

Other journalists are quoted as well, including David Vertime, a media reporter, Yehuda Schlesinger, Yanon Magal, and Zvi Yeheskeli. A recent Haaretz op-ed likened their statements to those of Radio Rwanda. I mean, is that an apt comparison here?

Well, if you look at the international law, you see that media outlet is not supposed to promote genocidal acts. And if you call for the destruction of tens of thousands or millions of Gazans, then practically that's what you do. You mentioned David Wertheim, who is a media reporter.

Fun fact, he is the left-wing counterpart in a radio program who has to counter the right-wing anchor at the radio program. So on October 7th, you could see the left-wing reporter calling for a genocide of Gaza, just like he was on the extreme right.

In the first few weeks of the conflict, we heard of several instances of backlash against journalists who criticized the Israeli government or the IDF's actions. Government officials have also made threatening remarks against publications like Al Jazeera and Haaretz. What does retribution against journalists look like now? In the first few weeks, it meant that you really couldn't stand with a microphone in an Israeli city and report what's going on in Arabic.

you would have been harassed and probably thrown out of the street. And that happened several dozen times in the first few weeks. It's kind of more calm right now. You mentioned Al Jazeera? Yeah, that's right. Al Jazeera. Well, the Israeli government passed emergency regulations in order to shut down Al Jazeera in Israel.

But that was a bit of a farce. First of all, the regulation says that you can block the access to Al Jazeera or any other foreign media outlet for Israelis surfing the web. But that's A, very simple to bypass. And B, that's not how people see Al Jazeera. They watch it on satellite.

Also, the emergency regulations stated that you could force the closure of media outlets' offices and confiscate its equipment. The thing is that the Minister of Communications really wanted to shut down Al Jazeera, but Prime Minister Netanyahu wouldn't let it happen, probably because Qatar, which funds Al Jazeera, is part of the effort to negotiate with Hamas to release the Israeli hostages.

So what the Israeli government finally did was take the same emergency provisions and enforce them on El Miadin, which is a pro-Hamas Lebanese channel. So now if you want to watch El Miadin through the Israeli Internet, you have to go to your Chrome browser settings and press a few buttons and then you'll be able to see it.

And also, since they don't have any office in Israel or equipment, there was nothing to close or seize. You've mentioned that this reactionary stance is something that happens time and time again in Israeli media. Can you tell me a little bit about the precedent for this type of reaction among Israeli journalists? Sure. It's not the first time that we're in war in Israel. It's not the first time that we're in war with Gaza. It is...

Really, the first time that there has been such a heavy blow to the state of Israel and such a feeling of existential threat to every citizen. So the reaction is the same, but more extreme. I'll give you an example. I watched a few days ago a reporter called Dana Weiss. She's one of the leading commentators on Channel 12 in Israel. And she was speaking about

after one of the previous rounds of violence in Gaza, I think it was 2014 or something like that, about the role of the media. It was in the Tel Aviv University, a nice panel about what we did right and wrong. And she said, we didn't show enough human casualties in Gaza. And I know that we should have done it. And I hope that we'll do it more the next round.

So here we are in the next round, and they're showing even less of what's going on on the other side of the border. So it's really depressing that things are only getting worse from that point of view. As you've mentioned, Netanyahu and some of the high-ranking military officials haven't really given us an official clear vision for what the future of Gaza and Palestinian life could look like.

But there have been other clues about the pressure that Netanyahu is under and the belief of some high-ranking members of his government. The Wall Street Journal reported that Finance Minister Bitzalel Smotrich, who is head of the far-right religious Zionist Party, recently said that Israel should rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza that were uprooted in 2005 –

and that his country should encourage, quote, voluntary migration of Gaza's residents to countries that will agree to absorb them as refugees. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir, a leader from the settler movement and head of another far-right party, the Jewish Power Party, said that, quote, encouraging emigration could help end the war. And these are not the first time that we've heard prominent members of the Israeli government floating the idea of resettling Palestinians. So,

How are these statements being metabolized by the Israeli press? They're completely legitimized and very widely published. You should remember that everyone believes that there will be an election after the war is over. And you mentioned B'Tal El-Somotrich. Right now, his numbers at the polls are very low. So, of course, he wants to attract more voters from his base, which is the far right.

And that's part of the problem because you would like the military to do what it does in order to keep you secure without any political interest. But I

I guess I'm trying to understand this type of rhetoric sets off alarm bells among American officials. They have said, no, no, no, that is not on the table. Yes, these were once fringe politicians, but they are very much close to Netanyahu. And I'm trying to understand how widely held the belief is that this is one, the right thing to do to Palestinians and two is even really possible. Well, if you look at the polls in Israel, there's a lot of support for encouraging willful immigration of Gazans.

Nobody really discusses what that means, what is willful immigration of two million people. Netanyahu was forced to form the extreme white government with those two ministers because nobody else would

agree to be in his government because he's a crooked liar and you can't trust him. So he doesn't have a lot of choices, but to keep his coalition together and allow those far right fascist politicians express their ideology. And it's a trap. A finger trap that the more you resist, the harder it is to get out of it.

Exactly. The consequences of forming a coalition with the most extreme elements of the Israeli right? Yes, yes, exactly. In the American media, at least, we've seen reports that Israel plans to scale back some of its offensive, at least in northern Gaza, following pressure from the American government. For instance, Netanyahu has said that Israel doesn't intend to have, say, a permanent occupation in Gaza. But as many outlets have observed, Israel

Israeli media and officials are telling a different story about the next phase of the war. And this seems to be a larger pattern of the kind of information that Netanyahu gives to American Western journalists as opposed to what he says to an Israeli audience. So what are you all hearing about the coming months?

Well, our prime minister has two Twitter accounts or X accounts. One is very dignified, where he published his video of himself saying, "We don't want to conquer Gaza or expel the population." The other X account is where all the populist material is published, and he speaks a very different language there and addresses a very different audience, the Israeli audience.

We do hear also in Israeli media that there is a new phase starting to evacuate parts of the military reserves that were drafted on October 7th. But what nobody is talking about is what will happen in the day after. Netanyahu apparently doesn't want to discuss that. And it is a cause of concern when you go fight a war without knowing exactly what's

The purposes. I mean, of course, the purpose is to keep Israelis safe. But what would happen after you collapse Hamas? If that's even possible. Exactly. We've talked about a lot of dismal coverage, extremist rhetoric that has been normalized in the Israeli press.

What would you like to see Israeli journalists do differently in the coming months? What role can or should the press play in helping save lives, cool extremist rhetoric, and contain this war?

Well, first of all, just start showing what's going on in Gaza and not only the horrible suffering in Israel post-October 7th, but the horrible suffering in Gaza as well. There are journalists who do that, but not most of them.

Secondly, critically reporting on the Israeli military. I think it's the patriotic thing to do during a war because if you airbrush all the problems, they won't get fixed in time and you'll eventually run into them again.

So the military correspondents should grow a spine and not report only what the IDF spokesperson gives them. I would also hope that Israeli journalists ask these questions to Israeli politicians. I mean, they do ask them about the consequences of war, what will happen. Are you taking decisions based on political interest or not?

But they don't force the prime minister and the minister of defense to answer questions about the human cost of their policies. Are you hopeful these we'll see some of these improvements soon?

No, but, you know, it's kind of like ironic that the more the war will go on, the more the Israeli IDF gets trapped in the, you know, the mud of Gaza.

then there will be more critical voices coming out, I should imagine. We saw it before in Lebanon in the early 80s. That's the usual way that things go. In the beginning of the war, you're not allowed to criticize the army or the government, but as things go by and more and more soldiers die and there's no clear image in the horizon, there's more legitimacy to asking the tough questions.

You've made a strong case that Israelis don't understand what's taking place in Gaza, the damage that has been done by its military's bombardment. Is there anything you think that American audiences don't understand about what's happening in Israel that you would like to communicate? Well, basically that. Basically that the Israelis are inside a bubble and are unaware of

of A, what's going on in Gaza, and B, how is it seen in the entire world? So when you speak with your Israeli friend or relative or whatever, you should remind yourself that you're speaking with someone who is in a parallel universe, who does not see what you see and is not aware of the facts that you are aware of. Oren, thank you very much. Thank you.

Oren Persico is a staff writer at The Seventh Eye, an independent investigative magazine in Israel. Thanks for listening to the Midweek Podcast. I'm Michael Loewinger.