With few exceptions, the Israeli press is none too fond of Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu. The feeling, as a result, is mutual, with very good reason.
Acting as judge, jury and executioner, the country’s media outlets have not even tried to conceal their long-standing desire to see his dust. Imagine their delight, then, when the judicial system provided them with the perfect cover for their unbridled lack of neutrality and blatant partisanship.
Not that readers or viewers really believe that journalists are unbiased. More to the point, most people these days – including publishers, editors and reporters – seem have a hard time telling the difference between news, analysis and opinion.
Nor would this be the least bit of a problem if each outlet acknowledged its slant. There is no shame in having and promoting a worldview, after all. No, the disgrace lies in the pretense. And left-wing reporters are full of it, so to speak, which is why Netanyahu is a perfect target for them.
It is not his party, voters or even the entire Right – they claim – that is at the root of their open aggression, but rather the man himself. Indeed, they tell themselves and everybody else, the very fact that he is under indictment on charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust makes him fair game.
Never mind that Netanyahu, like every citizen in a democracy, is supposed to enjoy the presumption of innocence. The so-called “cloud” over his head is enough to demand that he disappear from the scene, if not the face of the Earth. The trouble is that huge swaths of the public clearly do not agree, and vote repeatedly with their feet to prove it.
There is one issue on which Netanyahu and his in-studio nemeses see eye-to-eye, however. Like him, they want his trial, which kicked off at the beginning of this week, to be broadcast live. They even submitted a formal request ahead of Sunday’s arraignment that it be televised. But for some reason, the Jerusalem District Court – where the arraignment took place and the rest of the trial will be held – nixed the idea.
The refusal might not have appeared odd under different circumstances. Legal proceedings rarely have been live-streamed in Israel. Two notable exceptions are the trials of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1961 and concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk in 1986, each of which aired in full on the radio.
DECADES PASSED before the Israeli public would be privy to such proceedings. Last month, the High Court of Justice took part in a pilot program to test the waters for transmissions of certain trials. The petitions heard on April 16 involved issues related to the coronavirus lockdowns. One was a complaint of the government’s use of Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) methods to locate COVID-19 carriers, to ensure that they remain under quarantine. Another had to do with the police department’s tracking of cellphone data for similar purposes.
A third, connected to social-distancing regulations, centered on the bans imposed on minyanim (prayer quorums) and mikvaot (ritual baths).
The seven-hour hearing – presided over by Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut – was filmed by the Government Press Office and broadcast live on the court’s website. Whether anyone bothered to watch it, or even knew of its existence, is unclear.
What is certain, however, is that more than one million Israelis were glued to the two days of televised High Court hearings in early May, which centered on petitions by left-wing groups to rule out Netanyahu as head of the new government, and to nullify the national-unity coalition deal that he struck with Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz.
No need for a spoiler alert here. Though the ruling handed down by Hayut and 10 of her cronies may have come as a surprise to those familiar with and critical of the political overreach of the bench, it is by now well known. The petitioners lost, and the government was sworn in two weeks later.
To be sure, the above proceedings were not as titillating as, say, the murder trials of OJ Simpson or Jodi Arias. But they were riveting nevertheless.
The interaction between Hayut and the lawyers arguing against and on behalf of Netanyahu not only was fascinating, and even occasionally amusing; it was something that we ordinary folks – you know, the ones our authorities are supposed to serve – should have the right to witness.
Cameras in the courtroom made this possible. If they also caused the actors at the center of the drama to feel self-conscious at times, so be it. Keeping them in check is what democracy is all about, ideally, at least. The nature of Netanyahu’s indictments has been calling this somewhat into question.
The charges sound horrible. Nobody wants a head of state who engages in bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Many shudder at the thought of their leader even coming close to committing such crimes.
On the other hand, the actions that led to the accusations do not fit into any of the above categories, as Netanyahu and his myriad of supporters have been arguing for the past four years. That two of the three indictments involve his efforts to obtain more flattering press coverage would be funny if it weren’t outrageous beyond belief.
RENOWNED LEGAL scholar Alan Dershowitz, who is well-versed in the details of the indictments, concurs. On the morning of Netanyahu’s arraignment, the Harvard Law School professor emeritus reiterated what he has been stating and writing about this travesty since its inception.
“Netanyahu’s trial poses great danger to democracy and the rule of law,” he told Army Radio on Sunday. “This is the first time in the history of any modern country that a man is being prosecuted for trying to gain positive coverage.”
Particularly, one might add, when that person is a politician.
Unfortunately for the “anybody but Bibi” camp, Netanyahu no longer needs the mainstream press to get his message across. Social media provide him with the platform to communicate directly with Israelis and the rest of the world.
Nor is he void of friends in right-wing outlets, which give him a far fairer shake than their counterparts do on the Left.
Take Channel 20, for instance, one of whose show hosts, Boaz Golan, got his hands on transcripts of recordings that cast a dark shadow on Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit’s integrity and credibility, not to mention shed light on his persecution of the PM who appointed him.
This is but one reason that Netanyahu is calling for every minute of his trial to be out in the open. Up until now, while he was forbidden from discussing the details of his investigations, police were leaking spliced transcripts of his talks with detectives to hostile journalists, who edited them further.
In a one-on-one interview with Golan on Sunday night, Netanyahu referred to this phenomenon to explain his desire for transparency.
“I requested that there be a live broadcast,” he said. “I have nothing to hide. I want everything exposed, [including] what went on during those criminal investigations [and] the invention of these absurd charges. [I want] it all out in the open, not edited selectively by the fake news channels.”
Ironically, the “fake news channels” actually are equally hot to broadcast the trial. Regardless of their feelings about Netanyahu, they hunger for high ratings, which they certainly would garner. Having had a taste of the televised High Court hearings, the public developed an appetite for the whole buffet.
So why are we being denied the possibility? If the answer is that the legal system considers itself above the scrutiny of the mere mortals who elected Netanyahu, it is especially imperative to man the cam