US president Thomas Jefferson described a free press as vital to democracy, notably stating (before he became president of the United States) he would rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers.
It looks as if the current Israeli government, lately in a series of initiatives, prefers just the opposite: to rule without a free press (and without an independent judiciary, but that is a different matter).
Through a series of legislative moves, government decisions, law-enforcement actions, and economic restrictions – already implemented or under discussion – there are ongoing attempts to undermine press freedom in Israel, to the extent that one can no longer see the forest for the trees.
Main developments
Here are the main aspects of these developments:
A. Elimination of public broadcasting, or at least the removal of news content, alongside efforts to take control of its management from within.
B. Damaging the existing commercial broadcasting market in television and radio through the granting of licenses to whoever qualifies, thereby making it economically unsustainable and leaving every player in the market dependent on the government to operate.
C. Strengthening the regulatory authority by subordinating it to the communications minister and empowering it to impose significant financial sanctions on commercial license holders, which is likely to have a chilling effect on the license holders.
D. Police interference with journalists’ ability to report from the scene of unfolding events and infringements on journalistic privilege.
These measures are often justified by libertarian rhetoric invoking diversity and competition, while in practice they are frequently adopted in disregard of the opinions of the attorney-general, ministerial legal advisers, the General Israeli Regulatory Authority, and the Knesset legal adviser (respectively).
Compelling critique
Our critique of these measures is clear and compelling, and I will outline the principal ones below:
1. The so-called “variety” is likely to lead to the domination of the media and communications sphere by tycoons, thereby eroding independent journalism and a free press. Rather than fostering genuine pluralism, this “diversity” would result in media outlets reflecting mostly governmental views, differing only in tone, emphasis, or color. We do not want to find ourselves moving toward the conditions that prevail in countries where this is the case.
2. The erosion of broadcasters’ commitment to accurate and reliable information and replacing it with entertainment risks bringing us back to the logic of Ancient Rome, where rulers offered the public “bread and circuses,” pacifying public attention through distraction rather than democratic engagement.
3. The cumulative effect of these measures may result in the effective elimination of investigative journalism. Investigative journalism functions as a mirror of reality; when the reality reflected in that mirror proves inconvenient to those in power, their response is not to change reality but to shatter the mirror.
4. These attitudes reflect a broader agenda that includes the weakening of the judiciary. In this context, it should be noted that according to political science, the press and the judiciary are meant to function as the organs that oversee and monitor the actions of the government and the parliament.
If all of these initiatives – or even some of them – are adopted, it would no longer be possible to describe Israel as the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
Moreover, Israel has already declined in the global Press Freedom Index, going from slot 101 out of 180 countries in 2023 to 112 in 2025, its lowest ranking since Reporters Without Borders began tracking press freedom levels in countries in 2002.
All of these measures deepen the social division in Israel, despite widespread rhetoric calling for the healing of social rifts.
The prophets from Jewish history regarded criticism of power as a moral duty, and Ze’ev Jabotinsky likewise said that one of the fundamental distinctions between democracy and tyranny is the question of whether in a country the press is allowed to criticize the existing regime or whether such criticism is forbidden.
Indeed, without a free press, democracy loses its substantive meaning.
Prof. Hanan Melcer is president of the Israeli Council of Press and Media. He is a former deputy chief justice of the Supreme Court of Israel.