AVANTI!:

Behind the lines: The new 'Media Party' (Anshel Pfeffer, Nov. 24, 2005, THE JERUSALEM POST)

The question now is why has virtually the entire Israeli press signed up for membership in the new party.

Obsessive media-phobes on the Right will answer, of course, that the press is rejoicing at what it perceives to be the downfall of its nemesis, Binyamin Netanyahu, and that the leftist journalists consider this development as another nail in the coffin of the Right.

There are two major flaws with this theory.

First, pundits were dreaming of a new center party long before the Sharon-Netanyahu rivalry became such a visceral hatred. Second, not the only the Likud is going to go into hiding in March if the new party fulfills the pollsters' expectations. Amir Peretz's Labor will also fail. The unprecedented media support that the new party has received proves that Israeli journalists are a lot less idealistic than many Israelis believe. It's true that a number of prominent reporters and columnists have well-documented radical leanings, but the majority of the press corps is conformist - what they're really after is some fuzzy secular-Zionist dream of a peaceful, western, user-friendly country. That's why they are generally in favor of a territorial compromise but still dutifully applaud whenever the IDF eliminates terrorists. It is also the reason they turned Corporal David Markovitch into an instant hero, after he killed four Hizbullah fighters this week.

The Israeli media conduct a poverty-line festival when the annual statistics are released and run photos of empty refrigerators and hungry children, but the rest of the time they maintain a capitalist, market-orientated agenda and don't publish anything that could harm the interests of big business. In other words, a party that's tough on terror but willing to dismantle settlements, that pays lip service to social concerns but has no radical plans to redistribute wealth, is the summation of all their shallow ideals.

There is also another reason behind the media's backing of Sharon's party. The fact that two of the major players in the latest developments are Ehud Olmert and Haim Ramon is no coincidence. Both enjoy relationships which are much more than cordial with leading journalists, and the desire to see them cooperating in a new political framework is definitely a factor.

So the Israeli media is predominantly fascist too?

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 26, 2005 11:53 AM