Petition seeks probe of Channel 14, calling it ‘pure poison capsule’ undermining court

A petition has been filed with the High Court of Justice asking the court to order the police to investigate 18 prominent media personalities who appear on the pro-government Channel 14 news outlet for various criminal offenses, including sedition and incitement to violence.

The petition, filed Sunday by the Movement for Fair Regulation, cites a raft of inflammatory comments made by the right-wing commentators, anchors and pundits on Channel 14’s news programs over the last two years, and accuses police of failing to act on a complaint the organization submitted over a year ago detailing many of the alleged offenses.

The petition also demands that the State Attorney’s Office and the attorney general explain why they have not instructed police to investigate the alleged offenses in news coverage, which the Movement for Fair Regulation, an organization founded in 2024, describes as a “pure poison capsule” designed to undermine trust in the Supreme Court and a danger to democracy.

“These statements are intended not only to undermine trust, to belittle, humiliate and incite hatred toward the court, but to completely deny the public basis for its legitimacy and to encourage refusal to abide by its rulings,” the petition alleges.

“These comments, one by one, day after day, program after program, on a broadcasting channel that is one of the most watched in Israel, constitute a real danger to the democratic system practiced in the country,” the Movement for Fair Regulation’s petition alleges, and asserts that the antagonistic messaging has now “seeped and spread” into public discourse.

In response to the petition, the High Court on Monday ordered the police, the State Attorney’s Office, and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to update the court within 14 days as to when they will make a decision on whether to investigate the channel’s pundits.

Channel 14, which has yet to issue a response to the petition, has become increasingly popular over the last five years and is now the second most watched channel in Israel, after Channel 12.

Critics say its pundits and anchors frequently engage in extreme, incendiary and hyperbolic rhetoric against those it perceives as hostile to the government.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many of his cabinet ministers have given interviews on Channel 14 — particularly its flagship show “Patriots” —  while shunning Israel’s other commercial channels and the Kan public broadcaster.

On Tuesday, the Ynet news outlet reported that the police will be sending some 70 officers to join the Patriots studio audience during work hours for a show that will be filmed close to Independence Day next week.

While members of the security forces are often celebrated on Israeli television, especially around Independence Day, law enforcement sources cited by Hebrew media blasted the decision to take dozens of officers off their beats and send them to an overtly political show.

Police said in a statement that the officers were to take part in the show alongside medics, firefighters and other first responders, and that similar broadcasts had taken place in the past “without any extraordinary events or political discourse.”

Hebrew media coverage critical of the invitation was “biased and misleading” and “makes cynical use of a show of gratitude and appreciation for security and rescue forces,” police said.

‘It will only work with force’

The petition filed on Sunday cites dozens of examples of comments made by Channel 14 media personalities, both before and after the original complaint submitted to the police, which the organization alleges violate the sedition law.

“The day is close when not only will the government not obey the Supreme Court, [but] the people of Israel will rise up against the court,” said Shimon Riklin, who anchors the “Riklin and Partners” show, in February.

During a broadcast in June 2024, Riklin also seemingly called for right-wing activists to physically threaten Supreme Court justices into changing their position on a specific case, stating, “If right-wing people would come to the Supreme Court at 11:30, you don’t need many, you need a few hundred, you can change the outcome, which is obviously needed due to the [presiding] judicial panel.”

In January 2025, Prof. Moshe Cohen-Eliya, a legal academic and frequent guest on “The Patriots,” appeared to call for a military coup against Israel’s democratic institutions.

Speaking during the broadcast, he said that it was critical to ask candidates for the positions of IDF chief of staff and Mossad head whom they would obey if the High Court ruled against “democracy,” meaning the government, “and we the people tell them to act in accordance with our instructions.”

Continued Cohen-Eliya, “We have to ensure this because we are reaching the stage in which we will need the help of the army and the Shin Bet in order to fight… there is a nation here that does not want to live under a repressive regime [the Supreme Court] and we need to build all the focal points of force in order to prepare to restore power to the people… it will only work with force.”

As well as examples of what it says is sedition and incitement to violence, the petition cites other alleged offenses by Channel 14 personalities including contempt of court, exerting undue influence on court proceedings, and encouraging and abetting all of the above crimes.

For example, the petition quotes Riklin as stating that the High Court “cares more for the Nukhba [Hamas terrorists who perpetrated the October 7, 2023 atrocities] than IDF soldiers,” and that the court “takes care of Nazis.”

The petition also cites calls by Cohen-Eliya and frequent “The Patriots” guest Itamar Fleishman for US President Donald Trump to impose sanctions on Supreme Court President Isaac Amit; Fleishman’s comments calling Amit “mentally ill”; comments by pundit Yaakov Bardugo calling Amit a “dictator”; and numerous calls by several of the Channel 14 respondents named in the petition to disobey court orders.

The petition also says Channel 14’s media personalities have threatened a judge, pointing to comments made by frequent “The Patriots” guest Yaki Adamker on petitions before the High Court regarding access to the Western Wall for non-Orthodox Jewish denominations.

“The Western Wall is a red line… You do not understand who you are dealing with… When you harm one of the holiest places to the Jewish people, that will be going too far… The people will not be silent over such a thing. Be careful,” Adamker warned in February.

These and many other comments, the petition argues, demonstrate that Channel 14 is serving as a “generator of dangerous propaganda and rebellion” against Israel’s democratic institutions.

The petition also notes that legislation passed in 2018 enables Channel 14 to skirt crucial regulations applied to commercial news channels that are designed to ensure fair and balanced coverage.

As a result of that legislation, Channel 14 is exempt from regulatory provisions requiring that a channel have more than one single owner, that its news division be a separate cooperation from the channel itself, and that it adopt the ethics regulations of the Israeli Public Council for Press and Ethics.

“These accumulated facts raise real concerns that it [Channel 14] is being used as a tool by those who seek to undermine the stability of the democratic system in the country and to ready and prepare the ground and public opinion for violent action against the judicial system and its judges in general, and the Supreme Court, its president and justices in particular,” the petition alleges.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.