How Netanyahu missed an opportunity to stick it to his media rival

Ever since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to keep the Communications Ministry portfolio close to his chest, rarely does a month go by without an outcry over the Israeli government’s ostensible meddling in the public state-run media outlets, or hand-wringing over alleged curtailing of free speech.

Last week was no exception. On Sunday, Netanyahu and the head of the Histadrut labor union announced they would delay the opening of the new public broadcaster from September 2016 to January 2018, leaving many journalists and politicians — including the president, education minister, and public security minister — seething. A week later, Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon agreed to a compromise opening date of April 2017.

On Wednesday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman summoned an Army Radio station director after the radio ran a program on the poetry of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, whose writings Liberman later likened to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” Since entering the Defense Ministry, Liberman has also reportedly been weighing whether to take the popular radio station off-air.

Also Wednesday, the Knesset approved in its first reading a bill that would allow other companies to bid as operators of the Knesset channel, which is currently run by Channel 2, in what media reports speculated was an effort by Netanyahu to allow billionaire Shaul Elovitch — a friend of the prime minister and owner of Walla news and Bezeq — to step in. The proposed legislation has also been fiercely criticized over a clause that would bar the channel from “denigrating” the Knesset, unless the “denigration” served journalistic or educational purposes.

But while the series of media-related controversies last week has left many fearful of the government’s increasingly tight grip on the Israeli press, another incident last week amplified just how deeply entrenched the government connections with the Hebrew press already are and how efforts to improve transparency in Israel are repeatedly quashed over political concerns.

On Wednesday, Zionist Union MK Micky Rosenthal, an opposition member former investigative journalist, proposed a bill in the plenum that would force media outlets to disclose on articles whether they were paid by either companies or government offices for this coverage, in a bid to make transparent the practice of “native advertising,” or promotional content masquerading as news.

But neither the coalition nor even his own party stood behind him and the proposal was voted down 48-28. Netanyahu reportedly supported the bill, but capitulated to coalition fears, specifically from Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, whose Agudath Yisrael faction runs the “Hamodia” paper. And Rosenthal had to bring the bill directly to the plenum after the Ministerial Committee for Legislation postponed making a decision on whether to support the bill, in what he contended was an effort to stonewall him.

During the vote, Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog and No. 2 Tzipi Livni stayed away from the plenum. Zionist Union MKs Revital Swid, Itzhik Shmuly, Yoel Hasson, and Hilik Bar voted against their fellow party member’s bill.

“Many politicians in Israel, from all parties, have ties to media outlets,” said Rosenthal last week. “These are shady dealings. The media outlets give exaggerated coverage of the politician’s activities, and the latter protects their economic interests even when there is no real justification. Democracy is compromised, and we all pay a price.”

“Every day, dozens of advertisements disguised as journalistic articles are publicized in various media outlets,” added Rosenthal, who was also behind the 2008 documentary “The Shakshuka System,” which explored the government’s furtive dealings with Israel’s wealthy families.

An NGO bill for journalists?

The biggest offender with regard to native advertising is Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth daily and its website Ynet, owned by Netanyahu’s long-time rival Arnon “Noni” Mozes.

In 2016, the Freedom House NGO downgraded Israel’s freedom of the press ranking to “partly free” over the existence of the Sheldon Adelson-owned free daily Israel Hayom, which rarely offers anything but favorable coverage of the prime minister; Netanyahu’s control over the Communications Ministry; and the rise of native advertising on websites such as Ynet.

“The most-viewed news website in Israel, Yedioth Ahronoth’s Ynet, is also the site that contains the most native advertising, and commercial firms even fund some of its journalists’ salaries directly,” the report said. “Advertisers in Israel include not only private companies, but also government ministries, state agencies, and nonprofit organizations that pay millions of shekels to websites, newspapers, and commercial television channels to get their messages out, with the paid nature of the content often obscured. This takes place even though under existing law, branded content is forbidden on commercial television.”

Ynet is ‘the site that contains the most native advertising, and commercial firms even fund some of its journalists’ salaries directly’

The 7th Eye media watchdog in 2015 ranked Ynet as the website most “polluted” by native advertising, with a 2.4/7 ranking. Trailing Ynet, the Globes business daily, Channel 2’s Mako website, and the Walla news website also fared poorly in this regard, with a 3.2/7 score for all. Over the past five years, the media watchdog has produced documents showing Ynet received millions from organizations — including Coca-Cola and Bank Hapoalim — and various government ministries to cover certain issues and events — and cover them favorably.

The Marker Hebrew-language daily in April reported that Ynet received some NIS 3 million for every project it produced, under the guise of news coverage, for Bank Hapoalim. It said the Histadrut labor union paid Ynet NIS 1 million to cover its May 1 events, and noted the website has a history of dealings with the Environmental Protection Ministry, Science Ministry, and Education Ministry.

The bill by Rosenthal, a former Yedioth editor himself, thus gave Netanyahu a special opening.

The animosity between Netanyahu and Yedioth-owner Mozes is no secret, with the former having frequently accused Yedioth of publishing “lies” intent on harming him or his wife, Sara.

Like the controversial NGO Transparency Law, which de facto affects left-wing human rights groups who receive most of their funding from abroad, the bill would, by default, target Yedioth by forcing it to disclose its funding, while allowing the coalition to defend the bill in the name of transparency. It likely wouldn’t affect Israel Hayom, which as an enterprise is little more than an advertisement for Netanyahu, but is not dependent on ads to keep it afloat, as Yedioth is. And since it would be coming from Rosenthal, the prime minister would be able to deflect charges that he is directly targeting Mozes.

And Netanyahu, according to Hebrew reports, was all for it.

But then politics got in the way.

Politics over transparency

Over the past several months, in its debates over the NGO bill, Netanyahu has touted greater transparency on foreign funding, arguing the Israeli public has the right to know who stands behind the NGOs who receive most of their budgets from foreign countries. But when it comes to transparency on local matters, a certain double standard emerges. For example, the coalition on Tuesday also voted down a bill to extend the freedom of information act to the Jewish National Fund. And on Wednesday, Rosenthal’s bill, which also based itself on the principle of transparency, was scrapped.

According to Rosenthal, Litzman was the man who ensured the coalition torpedoed his bill, over concern for the effects it would have on his party’s flagship paper, Hamodia, and other Haredi outlets which are said to generate considerable revenue from native advertising.

“I turned to the attorney general so that he should clarify to the health minister that his interference in favor of his party’s paper is a clear violation of the rules governing conflicts of interests for ministers,” Rosenthal tweeted on Thursday.

And Liberman, Rosenthal alleged, had said: “This is Rosenthal’s law? I don’t care what’s written in it. I can’t stand Rosenthal.”

Rosenthal also maintained on Wednesday that Netanyahu dropped efforts to advance his bill as a carrot to get coalition members on board with the Knesset Channel bill.

“The law won’t pass today, not because it’s not deserving, but because of a deal: Some of the coalition factions opposed amendments to another bill, the Knesset Channel bill. Netanyahu was pressed to advance the bill on the channel and therefore the coalition gave up on this important bill that would lift the curtain on hidden advertising in the media,” the MK wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

Rosenthal didn’t let members of his own party off the hook either, hinting some were opposing it to keep up their positive relationships with the press, with eyes on reelection.

The coalition, meanwhile, accused Rosenthal of acting hastily.

“Even if there are things that should be amended [in this bill], it’s largely a good proposal,” conceded Tourism Minister Yariv Levin. “In light of the fact that a committee was founded [to evaluate the bill] and that within the coalition, people wanted to study the issue in-depth, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation asked to postpone bill for some period of time and try to reach agreements. It’s a shame that the sponsor refused to wait and therefore we have no choice but to topple the bill.”

Rosenthal said he would revive the bill in six months. And while media reforms are often volatile in the political arena — and the Israel Hayom bill in the last government was credited with bringing the country to elections, according to some pundits — it will be curious to see whether transparency and a desire to stick it to Netanyahu’s rival, or covert commercial interests and a desire for political stability, win out.