Israeli TV has fun with foreign media bias

A comedic Israeli television show poked fun at the ongoing debate surrounding perceived foreign media bias against Israel on Sunday night, with a fake journalist asking Israeli citizens why they were so terrible at genocide and wondering whether another Holocaust would help bolster the Jewish state’s “public relations.”

The television program “Hayom Balayla,” or “Today, Tonight,” is the brainchild of Israeli comedian and actor Guri Alfi. In the latest episode of the topical comedy show, Alfi took on the Israeli public’s view of international media.

“What’s there not to like about Tel Aviv? Plenty. But if you’re into humidity, homos and hummus, you’re in the right place,” reports Jimothy Bryson Cook — from the nonexistent WSK television channel in Dusseldorf, Germany — in the video.

“Jimothy” travels around the White City, shocking locals with questions about genocide and the need for a second Holocaust. But the German reporter is actually Israeli writer and Facebook personality Roy Iddan, sporting a terrible blond wig.

“Maybe what we need right now in order to bolster Israeli legitimacy worldwide is another Holocaust,” he tells one flabbergasted Israeli woman in the clip.

“God forbid,” she replies, with a pained expression on her face.

“Just for a public relations thing,” he tries to explain to her.

“The number of Arabs in Palestine in 1948 — around a million. The number of Arabs in Palestine now — around four million. Why are the Jews so bad at genocide?” he asks one older woman, who responds with a look of shock.

When “Jimothy” comes across locals swimming in the Mediterranean he calls to them: “Swim away, Jews. Swim back to Poland.”

Iddan as Jimothy also jokes about cocaine and marijuana use in Israel’s cultural capital, asking Tel Aviv’s deputy mayor if he can buy any weed from him and pretending to do cocaine in the bathroom next to Knesset member Benny Begin.

Earlier this month, the topic of foreign media bias was brought before the Knesset as representatives of international news outlets were called into a meeting of the subcommittee on legal warfare, which operates under the umbrella of the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

The committee meeting was prompted by a CBS news headline on February 3 after three armed Palestinians attacked border police officers and killed 19-year-old Hadar Cohen, which read: “3 Palestinians killed as daily violence grinds on.”

The local head of the Foreign Press Association, Reuters bureau chief Luke Baker, told the committee that he strongly rejected claims of inherent anti-Israel bias in the international media.

“I clearly don’t think the foreign press is biased,” he added. “I don’t think anyone is denying there have been errors, problems from time to time. Sometimes it’s been harder to correct them than others.” The many news organizations operating in Israel put out a “huge amount of coverage with very few factual errors,” he insisted. “I fail to see the media has something to answer in terms of systemic bias.”