The Israeli government has assaulted my newspaper

The cabinet voted last week to boycott Haaretz, just one move it has taken lately to threaten freedom of the press as it embraces cancel culture

Usually, I like to riff on some current events topic impacting our lives in the abstract. But the news became more personal last week. The Israeli government is boycotting my newspaper, Haaretz, as punishment for us doing our job – holding power to account.

Last Sunday, the Netanyahu cabinet unanimously approved a proposal by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi for the government to “sever any advertising relationship with the newspaper Haaretz” and for its members “not to have contact with the Haaretz newspaper in any form and not to publish any publications in it.” The vote to boycott Haaretz caught everyone off guard because it was not on the cabinet agenda, as is the norm. The Attorney General’s office didn’t know about it, so it hadn’t even reviewed the legality of the proposal.

The cabinet claimed the vote came in reaction to "many editorials that have hurt the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its right to self defense, and particularly the remarks made in London by Haaretz publisher, Amos Schocken, that support terrorism and call for imposing sanctions on the government." The reference to Schocken involved a talk in which he called Hamas militants freedom fighters. He walked back his remarks after a backlash, notably before the government boycott was announced.

The cabinet decision is distressing because it constitutes an assault on a news organization, one of the bedrocks of a functioning liberal democracy. Revenue from ads placed by the government is vital to the health of newspapers. Just take a look at Hungary, where there is virtually no free press to speak of anymore. around 85% of all government ad revenue goes to KESMA, a conglomerate run by a close ally of President Viktor Orban, which controls over 500 media outlets.

The norm in Israel until now has been for the government to spread its national advertising equally among the major players, a fair arrangement that doesn’t reward news outlets for showing loyalty. Haaretz has long criticized the government without financial consequences. In 2021, the government press office, which is supposed to be professional not political, spent nearly $1 million on ads in Haaretz.

This move constitutes a form of cancel culture, in which those in power want to silence opposing views. It is ironic that the sanctions should be announced the same week that a civilian commission on October 7 released its findings. The committee, which was formed because Netanyahu has refused to permit a state commission of inquiry, found that Netanyahu was responsible for shutting down views that opposed his concept that Israel could buy off Hamas with money in exchange for quiet along the Gaza border. They drew a direct connection between Netanyahu’s silencing of the opposition within the political and defense echelon and Israel’s total unpreparedness for October 7.

One of the lessons here is how important it is to have a robust opposing voice that we pay attention to, so that when our own instincts are leading us astray, we might consider and even adopt a view we hadn’t previously held. Of course, Haaretz is going to fight to stay afloat, but I am concerned how this potential loss of revenue could impact its functioning down the line. And any decline would be a loss for Israeli society, considering that the paper’s investigative journalism has made a difference on many occasions, calling out corruption among or neglect by government bodies.

Indeed, Haaretz has rankled government feathers in recent years with its reporting, and the state and other institutions have responded by righting their wrongs. Haaretz investigations have led to, just to cite a few examples from the past decade: the Interior Ministry canceling illegal summons to asylum seekers to report to a detention center; the army returning to Palestinians that settlers were illegally farming; the Justice Ministry probing a right-wing pro-settlement organization; Rwanda backing down from taking in asylum seekers deported against their will; the Mossad chief returning an illegal gift from a crony of Prime Minister Netanyahu; the Interior Ministry ending its policy of deporting the non-Jewish spouses and children of Jewish refugees fleeing Russia’s war on Ukraine; the government restoring a sign at the entrance to Temple Mount warning Jews that it is forbidden according to Jewish law to visit the holy site; the police investigating the father of a deputy cabinet minister for sexually abusing yeshiva students; the JNF freezing ties with a settler group that was using volunteers on illegal West Bank outposts; a senior police officer with close ties to a convicted felon withdrawing his candidacy for police commissioner; and the state prosecution opposing attempts by the Prime Minister’s Office to recruit the Shin Bet security agency to write a letter in support of delaying Netanyahu’s testimony in his corruption trial.

That last report, suggesting Netanyahu’s attempt to politicize the Shin Bet to give him legal protection, occurred less than a week before the cabinet vote to boycott Haaretz. I know that correlation doesn’t mean causation, but it should be noted that the cabinet had nearly a month to respond to Schocken’s “freedom fighters” comment.

I don’t know if this government will go any farther than these sanctions, but if it is able to get away with them, that will bode poorly for freedom of the press in Israel, which has declined in recent years. The mainstream media in Israel is already fairly hawkish, with Channel 14, the “Fox News” of Israel, becoming it’s the country’s second-most watched TV channel. It will be further incentivized to fall into line with the government as freedom of the press erodes. This boycott call coincides with the government’s moves last week to shut down Israel’s public broadcaster Kan. Its news division is also known for being frustratingly independent in the eyes of cabinet ministers because it dares to criticize government policies and reveal political corruption. It also follows the government’s decision months ago to ban Al-Jazeera, whose website is no longer accessible in Israel without a foreign-based VPN.

If you support the idea of a free press in Israel and/or oppose cancel culture, please consider subscribing to Haaretz.com (even for one month) and letting Mr. Karhi know (at shlomok@knesset.gov.il) that you are doing so to protest this anti-democratic measure. And should the government back down, then feel free to cancel your subscription – or maybe you’ll like it enough to want to keep it. That’s the beauty of a free press. It’s just that in today’s environment, unfortunately, we must take extra steps to make sure the press remains free.