From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, August 19, 2026
Central Elections Committee orders Bennett to remove ad showing soldiers
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
The Central Elections Committee orders B’Yachad party chairman Naftali Bennett to remove video clips of soldiers engaged in operational activity from a campaign video in which he slams the ultra-Orthodox for evading the draft.
According to the committee, chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg determined that the video constitutes “the use of public assets in connection with election propaganda” and that only the offending imagery should be deleted rather than the entire video.
Over the past several weeks, the committee has also ordered Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot to take down a campaign video featuring AI-generated images of IDF soldiers “engaged in various military activities,” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remove a video posted online featuring him meeting and taking selfies with children at the Malha Mall in Jerusalem.
The Times of Israel Community.