Forget Iran, Netanyahu's New No.1 Enemy Is the Israeli Media
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Sintesi personale
Netanyahu ha scatenato una campagna aggressiva non solo in difesa del quotidiano gratuito ,portavoce del suo governo , Israel
Hayom (opponendosi .a qualunque pagamento anche simbolico che ne
determinerebbe la chiusura) ma a tutta la stampa libera israeliana che
non intessa lodi alla sua persona Nella sua follia ha reclutato perfino Ze'ev Jabotinsky per la battaglia crescente contro i media .Gli sforzi del premier sono spalleggiati dai suoi stretti
alleati - il ministro della Cultura Miri Regev, David Bitan e il ministro degli affari di Gerusalemme Zeev Elkin
L'unica opposizione di Netanyahu proviene da destra e dall'interno del suo governo: Habayit Hayehudi.In questo camp le prossime elezioni saranno decise. La preoccupazione principale di Netanyahu non e' piu' l'Iran nucleare
ma come controllare i media, i giornali ebraici, i canali televisivi e
le altre fonti di informazione. "Perche' siamo al governo - ha detto
Miri Regev il ministro della cultura di Netanyahu - se non siamo in
grado di indirizzare la stampa e l'informazione?" (Haaretz).
Meanwhile, his party claims that Habayit Hayehudi is bedding down with leftist journalists.
haaretz
Quite a few experienced
and knowledgeable politicos were ready to swear this week that Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was about to call a snap election. They
watched, stunned, as he flayed Education Minister Naftali Bennett, and
as the government reached a boiling point just before submission of the
2017-2018 budget and, above all, as an old-new agenda came to the fore:
the media.
Netanyahu
dismantled his previous coalition on a pretext of “lack of governance,”
but the main reason was the threat to his private mouthpiece, the
freebie newspaper Israel Hayom. What happened once could happen again.
And this time, the premier is enlarging the arena. It’s not just a case
of fighting the demand for even a symbolic payment for the paper –
which, as even Netanyahu admits candidly, could bring about its closure –
but rather of a sweeping campaign against everything that smacks of a
free press and doesn’t sing the praises of the Great Leader.
Netanyahu
came down especially hard on Noni Mozes, chairman of the Yedioth
Ahronoth Group of media outlets. In a monologue he delivered on Monday
at a meeting of the Likud Knesset faction, the prime minister portrayed
himself as a one-man cavalry galloping to the rescue – liberating
Israel’s citizens from the suffocating grip of the left-wing mafia that
is telling the masses what to think.
“Politicians
want to curry favor with elements in the media that seek to remain a
monopoly,” he asserted. “That is exactly the reason that I assumed the
role of minister of communications. Because I alone am capable of
withstanding the pressures and the attacks of the media elements.”
Netanyahu
abandoned his Iranian agenda after his abject failure to prevent last
year’s signing of the nuclear accord between Iran and the world powers.
He wore out the thesis of the “treacherous left” and the “Arab droves”
in the last election. He won’t likely be able to use that lame gambit
again so effectively, not least because – let’s admit it – the left is
dead. Moribund.
But
the media are still here. Albeit weaker, poorer, fighting for their
lives in a difficult advertising market and adjusting to the era of
social networks. Netanyahu declared this week, in the Knesset session in
memory of Jabotinsky, that his next target will be to “open” the market
of commercial channels to competition. It’s easy to see where he’s
heading: In the next election he’ll be aiming at the media. And not in
only a marginal way; this time he’ll launch a massive bombardment.
The
targets won’t only be the daily newspapers – principally, Yedioth
Ahronoth and Haaretz – but the two commercial TV channels. Public
broadcasting has already been dealt with. The premier’s sabotage
efforts, abetted by his close allies – Culture Minister Miri Regev,
coalition chairman David Bitan and Jerusalem Affairs Minister Zeev Elkin
(also now environmental protection minister) – have left their mark.
The apprehension and uncertainty within the entity that’s due to replace
the Israel Broadcasting Authority is bound to have a negative impact on
the recruitment of new staff. Even if the new corporation comes into
being, despite the obstacles placed in its path by the government, it’s
hard to see it playing a major role in the media market.
Casting
the media as the enemy of the people will also serve Netanyahu
politically, against Bennett and the party he heads, Habayit Hayehudi.
Even now, there is no Likud press release in which Bennett – with or
without Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked – is not mentioned in the same
breath with Noni Mozes and “the left” as trying to undermine the
Likud-led government. Though the next election isn’t scheduled to take
place before 2019, the anti-Bennett message is being hammered home
insistently. Netanyahu is trying to push Bennett into a corner where
he’ll be forced either to continue to support a free media or to change
his tune for fear of losing some of his constituency to Likud.
Since
the fiasco of the attempt by Netanyahu and Zionist Union leader MK
Isaac Herzog to form a unity government – which ended with the co-option
of Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu – there has, in effect, not
been a parliamentary opposition in this country. The Labor Party (chief
component of Zionist Union) is mired in suicidal internecine fighting.
The year-long delay in the party’s primary agreed upon this week will
not bring peace and quiet, only destruction.
Yair
Lapid’s Yesh Atid, the second-biggest party in the opposition, is
effectively nonexistent. It has some industrious, well-intentioned
people, but when the leader is busy playing at “being foreign minister,”
the whole Knesset faction looks unfocused.
The
only opposition to Netanyahu comes from the right, and from within his
government: Habayit Hayehudi. It is in that arena that the next election
will be decided. The premier grasps this and has initiated the battle
already, since all he’s thinking about is the next election. He knows
there is little chance of Bennett recommending him to the president as
prime minister again. Bennett thinks that Netanyahu has crossed into the
danger zone, and has to be ousted – for the good of the country.
Play within the play
Justice Minister Shaked doesn’t usually say much in cabinet meetings, so her outburst this week left her colleagues agape.
She pounded on the table with her fist after Minister Without Portfolio
Ofir Akunis claimed that her party, Habayit Hayehudi, had planted
journalists sympathetic to it in the new public broadcasting entity.
“Enough lies! Stop whining and start governing!” she shouted at the
Likud ministers.
The
collective astonishment around the table stemmed from what seemed like a
total disproportion between the remark and the (non-)importance of the
speaker, Akunis, and the passionate response. Shaked is a cool, calm,
intellectual type. Akunis was only the match that ignited the blaze.
Here’s
the backstory: Shaked and Bennett recently expressed an opinion
contrary to Netanyahu’s on the new public broadcasting corporation;
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu) did as well. All were dead set
against the decision to delay the corporation’s start of broadcasting by
15 months, until January 2018. In response, a “Likud source” issued a
communique stating that Bennett and Shaked were serving as the long arm
of Yedioth’s Noni Mozes. The two bit their lips and said nothing.
Then
last Saturday, Shaked was asked on “Meet the Press” about the clash
between Netanyahu and Bennett in the security cabinet, over the extent
to which the government addressed the problem of the Gaza tunnels before
the 2014 war. “I know Naftali Bennett as a person who speaks the
truth,” Shaked replied, “but let’s wait for the state comptroller’s
report.”
Asked
about the investigation now under way against the prime minister –
namely, when and if he should resign, she offered a dry, formalistic
reply: “There is a law stipulating that a minister must resign only when
he is indicted.” She added that it was important to be careful not to
turn investigations into attempts at political liquidation.
The
response appeared late that same night, on Likud’s Facebook page:
“Bennett is continuing to dig political tunnels in order to harm the
prime minister … He balks at nothing, including lies … Time after time,
Bennett and Shaked are showing that they are collaborating with the
forces of the left to topple the Likud government. We see this in the
alliance with Lapid, in the preservation of the left-wing monopoly in
the media and also in their ministerial activity.”
Bennett
and Shaked didn’t know what had hit them. They wondered whether
Netanyahu would dare use such brutal, provocative language against his
other coalition partners. With regard to his new pal Lieberman, or Arye
Dery or Yaakov Litzman or Moshe Kahlon (who, contrary to Bennett, is
considered a natural partner for a center-left government). Obviously
not.
Besides
Netanyahu’s understandable rationale of wanting to drive Habayit
Hayehudi, his right-wing rival, into the arms of the left, his feelings
in this case are spurred by primal hatred nourished by his close
surroundings. Everyone in the political arena understands who is behind
the media communiques and who the torchbearer is who will never let this
fire go out.
Habayit
Hayehudi decided to maintain restraint, but everything blew up the next
day in the cabinet meeting. “We’re not going to be your punching bags
anymore,” Bennett shouted. “What are you all whimpering about all day?
You’ve been in power almost 40 years and you can’t stop wailing. Decide
what you want – a [broadcasting] corporation, yes or no. Who is the
communications minister today? And the one before him?”
Then
hours later, close to midnight on Sunday, a Likud Facebook post again
dubs Bennet and Shaked “darlings of the left,” who are digging tunnels
under Netanyahu’s government. There was no logical reason for that
late-night volley, 12 hours after the cabinet skirmish. There was
nothing in that off-the-wall response other than bile.
This
time, the Bennett gang fought back. In a press release the next
morning, they accused Netanyahu of “firing inside the armored personnel
carrier” – “just as he fired inside the APC when he voted for the [Gaza]
disengagement and the destruction of the Katif Bloc settlements, just
like when he released the largest number of terrorists in the country’s
history, when he gave Hebron to Yasser Arafat, when he froze
construction [in the settlements], when he gave in to Hamas …” and so
on, trippingly upon the tongue.
Netanyahu’s
aides went into shock. They’d expected an appropriate Zionist response,
not to be hit by a whole APC between the eyes. Every self-respecting
leader would have reacted to that blast of insults by immediately firing
those responsible. But Netanyahu’s political weakness was exposed
glaringly here: Without Habayit Hayehudi, he doesn’t have a government.
Likud
issued another response, but it was more of the same. The traces of
shock were evident in it. Bennett had made good on his threat; the
balance of terror had shifted. The next round will start not at 10 kph.
but at 180.
What you see
“A
tempest in a teacup,” says Yariv Levin (Likud), the minister who
liaises between the government and the Knesset, about the public
broadcasting corporation furor. The prime minister has no intention of
seizing control of public broadcasting or of undermining the new entity,
and there’s no malice. Rather, says Levin, Shlomo Filber, director
general of the Communications Ministry, and other experts, told
Netanyahu that the new corporation wasn’t ready to start broadcasting,
and he took their advice. Any evil schemes cooked up by the premier’s
rivals are plain old nonsense.
“It’s
true that many in Likud think the corporation is a bad idea,” Levin
admits, “and I myself had objections at the start. But Netanyahu is past
all that. He was even surprised at what he heard in the cabinet about
the emerging personnel makeup of the corporation. The allegations voiced
there were new to him.”
At
present, Levin says, “there’s a better chance that the corporation will
come into existence than that it won’t. Everyone understands that. The
real reason for the clash that erupted is the State Comptroller’s Report
about the [Gaza] tunnels and the argument with Bennett. The quarrel
over the corporation is the result of an accumulation of things.”
Levin,
the minister closest to Netanyahu and his emissary on the most delicate
missions, has the soul of a lawyer. He will defend his client
devotedly; what you see with him is what you get. There is no hidden
message.
“What
characterizes the events of this week is that at the end of the
meeting, everyone wanted to show that he is alive... In the end, note
that the atmosphere in the Knesset is quite relaxed. And cabinet
meetings are always very boring. The work gets done.”
Levin
terms the relations between Bennett and Netanyahu as “very bad,” and
expects that to continue, but without endangering the government’s
existence. (Bennett too, overall, shares this view.) Levin’s eternal
composure has been shaken by someone else: Finance Minister Kahlon, who
made a comment about the government needing to go on recess urgently
before it’s institutionalized.
“Kahlon
is trying to position himself as the responsible, sane, judicious adult
in a government of irresponsible wackos,” Levin says. “As though he’s
above it all. But really, does anyone buy that?”
I
asked him the standard question: Is the unity government option
becoming viable again, now that Herzog doesn’t have to deal with a
leadership battle for a year? Levin didn’t sound optimistic. “In the
end, it’s Herzog’s decision,” he said. “The terms are known. The bride
we’re offering is known, even if she’s shrunk somewhat since the last
round. Ministerial portfolios have been distributed” – referring to
Lieberman getting the Defense Ministry and Kahlon getting the Economy
and Industry Ministry, this week.
Netanyahu
continues to retain the Foreign Ministry, claiming it’s “waiting for
Herzog,” but no one in his party believes that. (In fact, they don’t
believe anything he says about anything.) He won’t appoint anyone from
his party to the post – to avoid a blood feud between Gilad Erdan and
Yisrael Katz, two ministers who each have a written commitment from
Netanyahu to be appointed the party’s most senior minister, and also to
prevent either of them from enhancing his public status.
The
same general appraisal prevails in Labor and in Zionist Union. Herzog
gained a year’s reprieve until the primary, but in the meantime he will
be savaged by his party rivals. He needs more than a miracle to
rehabilitate his standing, and that won’t happen in the opposition. The
foreign affairs portfolio would definitely help, or at least let him
pass the time pleasantly until his ouster, but he has no troops behind
him. No one will follow him into this government.
The
Knesset recessed on Thursday for almost three months and will reconvene
on the eve of the U.S. election. The period between Nov. 8 and Jan. 20,
2017, when the new president will be sworn in, is generating
consternation in Israel’s political corridors. What revenge will
President Obama take on Netanyahu, once he has nothing to fear?
No
one here has any doubt that after eight years of futile diplomatic
efforts, Obama will wish to leave some sort of legacy vis-a-vis the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, possibly in the form of a binding Security
Council resolution. Netanyahu had designated Herzog to sweeten that
bitter pill. It could have been a perfect match: congruent interests,
mutual dependence. Now it looks like each of them will have to manage by
himself, with himself.
Patrizia Cecconi Sarà capitato anche voi: vai tante volte in un luogo che ami e ti sembra di conoscere nei più irrilevanti dettagli e poi un giorno, all’improvviso, scopri l’esistenza di qualcosa che avevi sempre guardato senza riuscire a vedere. E’ quel che racconta Patrizia Cecconi con i gelsi della Palestina. Sono nei giardini, nelle campagne aperte, in quelle coltivate, ovunque. Eppure, attenta e appassionata osservatrice degli alberi della terra più amata, i gelsi, bianchi o neri che fossero, non li aveva notati. “Avevo fatto un po’ come quei turisti che vanno in Terrasanta e non si accorgono della ferocia e dell’illegalità dell’occupazione”, scrive con amaro e raffinato gusto del paradosso. Eppure, il muro dell’antica leggenda di Tisbe e Piramo, da cui avrebbe avuto origine mediorientale il gelso nero, avrebbe dovuto illuminarle lo sguardo… di Patrizia Cecconi Un’antichissima leggenda racconta che Tisbe e Piramo , due adolescenti babilonesi, belli come lo
Israele governo di estrema destra e opposizione 156 Israele opposizione civile e democratica 618 Sulla scia del colpo di stato giudiziario, le discussioni israeliane sul trasferimento all’estero non si fermano più ai gruppi di social media. In una lussureggiante valle dell’Italia nordoccidentale si stanno concretizzando idee di emigrazione collettiva – e iniziative simili stanno prendendo forma anche altrove Hilo Glazer 2 settembre 2023 1:19 IDT “Mentre il numero di ore di luce nella democrazia del loro paese continua a diminuire, sempre più israeliani arrivano nella valle montuosa alla ricerca di un nuovo inizio. Tra loro ci sono giovani con bambini nel marsupio, altri con bambini in età scolare, e ci sono persone con i capelli grigi come me. Un insegnante, un imprenditore tecnologico, uno psicologo, un toelettatore, un allenatore di basket. Alcuni dicono che stanno solo esplorando, ma si vergognano ancora di ammettere che stanno seriamente considerando l'opzione. Altri sembra
joimag.it Né Ashkenaziti né Sefarditi: gli Ebrei italiani sono un mistero - JoiMag Ashkenaziti, Sefarditi, Mizrahim, ma anche Bukhari, Falashà e Romanioti. Sono numerosissimi i gruppi che compongono la Diaspora ebraica. Tuttavia gli Ebrei italiani, gli Italkim, rappresentano un’eccezione unica e con una grande storia. Spesso si sente parlare di due categorie di Ebrei: Ashkenaziti e Sefarditi . Alcuni alludono anche a un terzo gruppo, i Mizrahim , per indicare gli Ebrei che vivevano in quei territori che oggi sono Iraq, Siria, Yemen, Iran, Georgia e Uzbekistan. Ma questa divisione in gruppi può risultare molto più complicata di quello che può sembrare a un primo sguardo. Ci sono tre modi di intendere la classificazione degli Ebrei; uno di questi si basa sulla geografia. Questo approccio applica l’etichetta “Ashkenazita” agli Ebrei che hanno gli antenati che provengono dal territorio che nella letteratura rabbinica medievale era chiamato
Questa foto è ' stata scattata a Lesbo e la signora che, insieme a due amiche, tiene in braccio un neonato a cui sta dando il biberon, si chiama Emilia Kamvisi e ha 85 anni. Quel bambino non è suo nipote o il figlio di qualche vicina di casa. Lei non sa nemmeno esattamente dove sia la Siria, il paese in cui è nato e nel quale probabilmente non potrà crescere, ma è sbarcato lì, sulla sua isola, qualche giorno prima. E lei sta facendo quello che ogni essere umano degno di questo nome dovrebbe fare: lo sfama, lo accudisce, lo protegge . Qualcuno ha proposto Emilia per il Premio Nobel per la pace. Lei ha risposto: "Cosa ho fatto? Non ho fatto niente". (foto da thetoc.gr)
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