Channel 10 removes controversial news director

The board of directors for Channel 10 votes to remove its newly appointed director after an uproar over reported disparaging comments about Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who heads the Sephardi Orthodox Shas party, as well about Israelis of African and Middle Eastern descent.

The board, however, says that the decision was based on inconsistencies in Sadan’s resume which falsely claimed he had held a senior managerial position before, a requirement for the role.

Sadan, a political lobbyist and former close associate of the Netanyahu family, was quoted by Haaretz on June 2 as having told the Channel 10 News board of directors: “Let’s tell 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,” using a stereotype referring to a person of Mizrahi descent living on Israel’s periphery.

Deri served a prison sentence between 2000 and 2002 for graft, before resuming his political career ahead of the 2015 Knesset elections. The interior minister is currently under investigation on new graft suspicions.

Immediately after the comments were published, Shas called on Netanyahu — who is also communications minister — to fire Sadan, threatening to break coalition discipline and skip Knesset votes until he did. Shas MKs have stayed away from the plenum, entering only to vote against an opposition bill on conversion.