Channel 10 CEO: New board chairman did insult Deri, Shas

The CEO of Channel 10 News confirmed Tuesday evening that the new chairman of the company’s board of directors, Rami Sadan, made disparaging remarks about Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who heads the Sephardi Orthodox Shas party, as well about Mizrahi Israelis of African and Middle Eastern descent.

Golan Yochpaz is the first person present at the meeting of Channel 10 News’s board of directors to confirm that Sadan made the statements, which were initially reported by the Haaretz daily on Tuesday morning.

Sadan vehemently denied the report, which sparked a coalition crisis with Shas.

“After a firestorm that’s lasted for hours, it should be stated clearly: Rami Sadan told the members of the board and me, ‘I hate Shas and Deri just like you in the elites,’” Yochpaz wrote on Twitter.

“He added: ‘We must get to Pirhia from Sderot.’ His comments were interrupted. Any other description is a distortion of the truth.” Pirhia is a Hebrew woman’s name most common among older Israeli Mizrahi women.

Haaretz reported a slightly different version of what happened at the meeting, saying that Sadan, a former PR executive and lobbyist who was appointed to his new post on Monday, told the board of directors: “Let’s admit the truth: I, like you, part of the elite, hate the Shas movement and that thief Aryeh Deri. But we, as the elite, have to broaden the channel’s circles and appeal to the audience of Shas, to Massouda from Sderot.”

“Massouda from Sderot” is a stereotype referring to a person of Mizrahi descent living on Israel’s periphery. It was originally coined by Alex Giladi, the first director of the Keshet TV franchise, who once said Keshet would supply programming to everyone in Israel, “to Massouda Cohen from Sderot and also to Moshe Rabinowitch from Yavne’el.”

Sadan was said to have stated that despite the fact that he and others in the meeting were “elites,” they had to make an effort to create programming that appealed to a lower common denominator.

Sadan repeatedly denied making any inappropriate comments and posted on Facebook that he is mulling a defamation suit, apparently against Haaretz.

“It upsets me that since this morning people have been anonymously quoting things I never said,” Sadan wrote. “I am looking seriously at the option of filing a libel claim.”

He went on to praise the Shas party, which figured prominently in his alleged comments, and which has threatened to vote against coalition measures unless he is fired.

“The Shas movement brought about a revolution in the State of Israel,” Sadan said, and asserted that “since this morning we have been making an effort to contact Minister Rabbi Aryeh Deri, who has yet to respond.”

He implied that the leak about his alleged comments targeted him due to the fact that he is religious.

“The media should be lovingly open to all opinions and communities in Israel,” he wrote. “We will only benefit from it.”

The report of his comments set off a storm of criticism in the political world, with the Communications Ministry, which is headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ordering the Second Authority for Television and Radio, which oversees broadcasting licenses, to look into the remarks.

Netanyahu also weighed in after being asked to comment on the matter during a press conference in Moscow, where he is on an official visit.

“He [Sadan] denies that he said the things,” Netanyahu said. “I think first of all it needs to be ascertained what was said and what was not said. If indeed the things were said they are very serious and of course he will need to disavow them and apologize, but first of all let’s clarify things.”

Shas has threatened to defy coalition guidelines during Knesset votes unless Netanyahu immediately fires Sadan for the alleged comments. Deri is currently under investigation for alleged corruption and has previously served time in jail for accepting bribes.

“For as long as this [dismissal] is not implemented, the movement’s lawmakers will vote in the Knesset plenum as they see fit,” Shas said in a statement. “The Mizrahi population has stopped being silent.”

Sadan told Channel 2 that he never said anything like the comments attributed to him, and suggested that a rival was out to scupper his appointment.

“I said that people want the media to remain only in the hands of the elite and doesn’t reach the Russian audience, the Arab and Sephardic [Jews], we will bring a curse on the media. The name Aryeh Deri wasn’t mentioned, the name Shas wasn’t mentioned, he isn’t relevant. How can anyone talk in terms of hatred?”

Responding to Sadan’s comments, Deri said the party’s voters were not “excess baggage,” rather “hundreds of thousands of Mizrahis who decided to come together and lift up their heads in order to defeat cases like Rami Sadan in the world. We are here to stay and will not ignore remarks like that.”

Sadan was appointed by the Channel 10 News board in a vote Monday night, receiving the support of controlling shareholders, according to Haaretz.