War of the words
The heat rises in the Hebrew-language daily arena, as Israel Hayom picks a fight with its main competitor and questions the paper’s motives
Adiv Sterman is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
The Hebrew language papers seem to be gearing up for an all-out fight with one another and with opposing political camps, seeing which can better advance its agenda and criticize its rivals more deeply.
Israel Hayom steps up its efforts to shame its main competitor as contributor Akiva Bigman ponders — innocently or not — whether Yedioth Ahronoth’s reporting on matters involving Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich may be influenced by a “secret deal” aimed at tainting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reputation. In a front page op-ed, Bigman lists a series of Yedioth articles and opinion pieces from past months which seem to defend Alsheich, or which criticize Netanyahu’s conduct in relation to the police commissioner and the many investigations surrounding the prime minister.
“Could it be that Yedioth Ahronoth has turned from a suspect in Case 2000 to a supporter of the police commissioner?” the Israel Hayom writer challenges his readers.
Bigman is referring to the investigation focused on an alleged clandestine quid pro quo deal made between Netanyahu and Yedioth Ahronoth publisher and owner Arnon “Noni” Mozes, in which the prime minister was said to have promised Mozes he would advance legislation to reduce the circulation of Israel Hayom in exchange for friendlier coverage from Yedioth.
“It’s hard not to ask some tough questions,” Bigman continues. “Did Yedioth Ahronoth receive some sort of promise in return for the services it provided? Does the paper’s publisher have some information that is not known to the public about its legal status?”
Bigman does not provide anything resembling an answer to any of these questions, of course, nor does he put forward any evidence in support of his hypothesis, other than the fact that Yedioth has been more sympathetic to Alsheich than to Netanyahu. Furthermore, given Bigman’s line of reasoning, one can challenge the writer and Israel Hayom with a similar but opposite set of questions, as the right-wing daily has for years been a fervent supporter of Netanyahu, and has more than once failed or forgotten to report on matters concerning the investigations involving the prime minister.
Is Bigman therefore wrong to question Yedioth’s motives? Not necessarily, but the questions seem to indicate that Bigman may know more than he cares to admit about how some Hebrew-language dailies operate. Reporters who write for glass newspapers shouldn’t throw shade, as they say.
Meanwhile, Yedioth, unsurprisingly, leads with coverage of the probe into suspected corruption in Israel’s purchase of submarines from a German shipbuilder, reporting on the pressures that had been leveled against Miki Ganor, the local representative of the German company ThyssenKrupp, who turned state’s witness in July.
Ganor reportedly provided police with recordings, emails, and text messages from other individuals involved in the case, including David Shimron, Netanyahu’s cousin and personal lawyer. Yedioth reports that even before the investigation, Ganor felt he was going to be thrown under the bus by his associates in the deal with ThyssenKrupp and began collecting incriminating evidence against them.
“I felt like they were trying to extort me,” Ganor said, explaining his motivations, according to Yedioth.
Keeping up with its highlighting of the worldwide campaign to reveal and combat instances of sexual assault, meanwhile, Yedioth contributor Yoav Promer asserts that we are on the verge of a “revolution of the sexes” and that both men and women are beginning to realize that the rules of the game have changed, as acts of harassment that would have once gone unpunished or unreported are now being cast as unforgivable.
“Evils that had been considered as inevitable became intolerable once the ability to change them arrived,” Promer quotes French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville. The piece accompanies two-page coverage of Israeli actress Gal Gadot’s reported refusal to sign onto a sequel for the box office hit “Wonder Woman” unless distributor Warner Bros. cuts its financing deal on the film with producer Brett Ratner, who has been accused of sexual harassment.
“The paradigm has shifted, and just as it was impossible to claim the world was flat after Columbus sailed west, so is it clear that from the new revolution of the sexes there is no way back,” Promer concludes.
In Haaretz, cartoonist Amos Biderman’s daily image titled “men on vacation” depicts former iconic Israeli news anchor Haim Yavin, who has been accused of forcing himself on a female reporter in the 70s, asking comedian Louis C.K., actor Kevin Spacey, Israeli broadcaster Gabi Gazit, and Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein — all of whom were accused by various women of sexual misconduct — to “make room” for him.
Haaretz contributor Tzvia Greenfield urges the paper’s presumed left-wing and Netanyahu-opposing readers to do everything they can in order to swap the country’s current leadership, even if that means compromising on a less-than-ideal candidate.
Greenfield directs her call to Arab Israeli voters too, and suggests they support Labor (or rather its two-party merger with Hatnua, the Zionist Union), the far-left Meretz, or even Yesh Atid, headed by arguably the flip-floppiest of all party chairmen, Yair Lapid. The writer argues that the country’s major Arab party has no real chance of influencing Israeli politics from the opposition, where it will most likely end up after the elections, and adds that voting for the United (Arab) List, therefore, will only benefit the politicians who make up its factions.
“If instead [Arab Israeli] voters were to join as brothers to the human wave striving to unseat the destructive right-wing, they will directly contribute to the success and will pave the way for a full and fulfilling companionship in a state in which all of us are citizens,” an optimistic-sounding Greenfield concludes.
