Press Council head ‘concerned’ by PM’s attacks on media

The head of the Israel Press Council on Friday expressed concern over recent attacks on the media, referring to an attack by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a television journalist who aired an exposé on the goings on at the Prime Minister’s Residence.

“Our democracy is weak and lacking checks and balances. Against this backdrop we are worried by attacks on the media,” said Dalia Dorner, a former Supreme Court justice, at a media awards ceremony in Tel Aviv.

“With a majority of two against one you can annul the basic laws on human dignity and liberty or you can annul the High Court of Justice, which is part of the Basic Law on Judiciary. Members of Knesset say threatening things against our gatekeepers and therefore our democracy is weak,” Dorner continued.

Netanyahu hit back furiously at Ilana Dayan after her “Uvda” program aired Monday, in a scathing personal attack in which he called the veteran journalist “a left-wing extremist” bent on bringing down his government.

“There is room for concern, because they have the political power to harm us. We see the harm to the [fledgling] news corporation, where some people say that if we can’t control it, we don’t need it,” Dorner said, referring to the body being established to replace the ossified Israel Broadcast Authority.

“And we saw the exposé by Ilana Dayan, where instead of receiving a denial or reaction to the issue, what we got from the prime minister was a brutal response endangering Dayan’s life. In the response to Dayan, they endangered her life. Because if you reduce this serious journalist to merely a hater of soldiers, who knows what hothead will try to harm her. They say you shouldn’t judge someone in their moments of anger, but I expect the prime minister to overcome his anger and not respond in such an inciting way.”

“Uvda” included exclusive interviews with various officials who were in Netanyahu’s inner circle, and offered inside information on the inner workings of his office.

The report depicted a shrewd and calculating politician who appears to be chiefly concerned with safeguarding his own rule, often valuing personal loyalty in his appointments above all other traits.

It also portrayed Netanyahu’s wife Sara as a problematic presence in the prime minister’s decision-making process, a power broker who is intimately involved in her husband’s work and decisions and who often has final say on government appointments.

However, it was not the investigation itself that aroused the most intense criticism, but rather the prime minister’s response to the program: a three-page, 680-word tirade read out by Dayan in full, in a six-minute segment toward the end of the program.

In it, the Prime Minister’s Office assailed Dayan’s character, calling her “a left-wing extremist” who “does not have an iota of professional integrity” and who is “one of the ring-leaders of the orchestrated attacks on… Netanyahu, which seek to bring down the right-wing government.”

The PMO claimed Dayan systematically went after the right while ignoring transgressions by the left, and called Monday’s report “a political propaganda broadcast against the prime minister and his wife, entirely comprised of recycled slanderous rumors and vile lies.”

It also accused her of fawning over Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a recent interview she conducted with him, making donations to “radical left-wing” charities, and hounding IDF soldiers.

Earlier this week, Israel’s leading diplomatic reporters also criticized Netanyahu for his tirade against Dayan, calling his personal attack against her an illicit form of intimidation unfitting for a democracy.

Netanyahu, who also holds the post of communications minister in the current coalition, is a frequent critic of parts of Israel’s diverse print and electronic media, and has been deeply involved in ongoing controversial efforts to reform Israel’s state broadcasting authority.