B’Ivrit | As Trump Cools, Israeli Media Struggle to Reset

“B’Ivrit: A Hebrew Language Media Roundup” is a monthly look at the news through the eyes of Israeli media consumers.

1. Israeli Media’s Awakening

Donald Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates last week upended American policy toward the Middle East and marked a new era in U.S. diplomacy, one that puts the Gulf countries center stage, that prioritizes business and trade deals over shared values, and that downgrades Israel to just another piece in America’s Middle East puzzle.

For the Israeli media, it was also a moment of reckoning, or at least of recalibration.

After echoing the common sentiment that Trump will be “good for Israel,” and that the Netanyahu right-wing government finally has a friendly face in the White House, it was time to reconsider. 

“The party started without us,” is how Sima Kadmon, a leading political columnist for Yediot Ahronot, summed up the visit and the widespread feeling among Israelis that Trump has chosen other friends in the region and has left Israel out. The paper’s weekend magazine’s cover story was titled “Donald of Arabia” and was dedicated to detailing Trump’s shift, which included his warm embrace of the new Syrian government, despite Israel’s warning; his dash toward a new nuclear deal with Iran, despite Netanyahu’s concern; and—perhaps most hurtful for Netanyahu and his supporters— Trump’s taking full credit for the release of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander and questioning Israel’s ability to free hostages on its own.

The liberal daily Haaretz, never a big fan of Netanyahu, ran a commentary piece as its main headline Friday with the title: “New world disorder,” followed by a column by political analyst Yossi Verter, who wrote that “Trump’s message to Netanyahu was clear: You’re fired.”

Trump’s newly discovered longing for Middle East peace and his impatience with Netanyahu seem to be leading to a realignment in the Israeli press: Left and center-left publications like Haaretz and Yediot Ahronot found themselves suddenly praising Trump, while the right-of-center media was scrambling to figure out what to do. 

B’sheva, a settler-oriented publication, explained in its weekend cover story that “Trump’s trip included comments that did not always align with Israeli interests, but it was meant to forge economic alliances and trade deals with the Arab world.”

Israel Hayom, a right-wing daily founded and funded by the Adelson family, also chose to focus on the business aspect of Trump’s trip while at the same time adding that Republican lawmakers are also confused about Trump’s recent actions and statements. 

The main theme in the Israeli media, especially on the major TV news channels, was that Trump had thrown Netanyahu under the bus—as noted, for example, by Ynet, Israel’s leading news website. Interestingly, the phrase “throwing under the bus” doesn’t really exist in Hebrew and has been adopted in recent years from English. Now it is showing up time and again as a useful way of describing relations between leaders in Jerusalem and Washington. And there are those who are further riffing on the phrase: “It’s not Trump who threw Netanyahu under the bus,” said Amnon Abromowitz, a staunch Bibi critic and one of the leading commentators on Channel 12 news. “It’s Netanyahu who is putting us on a bus driven by [far-right coalition members] Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.”

2. On the Ground in Trump’s Gulf Victory Lap

A personal anecdote: Israelis in general are not permitted to enter Saudi Arabia and are usually banned from Qatar as well. This rule applies to journalists, too, so it is quite uncommon for Israelis to receive first-person Hebrew language reports from these two Gulf powerhouses. 

As a reporter for Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, known as KAN, I had an opportunity this past week to provide our viewers in Israel with this kind of on-the-ground Hebrew reporting when I joined the White House traveling press covering Trump’s Gulf tour.

Any concerns over safety and security as a representative of an Israeli media outlet in Saudi Arabia dissipated the moment I landed in Riyadh. The treatment I received was identical to that of all journalists traveling with the president, and no issues came up when I identified my outlet or when I reported live, in Hebrew and with my network’s logo on the microphone, from Riyadh, or from the historic site of Diryah, where I provided a live report to our viewers as Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman shared a golf cart tour before sitting down to a state dinner. The Saudi team and dozens of Saudi armed security guards did not seem to mind. Nor did our hosts in Qatar, a nation that does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, though it does play a key role in mediating between Israel and Hamas.

The only issue that seemed to come up was online, where an X post of one of my reports drew a lengthy trail of angry reactions in Arabic, allegedly of Saudis displeased with the fact that a representative of the Israeli media had been allowed into the country. Some, by the way, argued it was all fake and that I wasn’t really there. I was. 

There is no way to gauge how representative online comments of this kind really are, nor does it seem that they had any impact on authorities. Either way, they did not influence my work on the ground. 

3. Normalizing Relations Through the Media?

Was the Saudi Kingdom sending any kind of message by allowing an Israeli journalist to cover the visit?

As flattering as the thought might be that I was serving as the messenger of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel,  this was hardly the case. 

Did the Saudis know I was a reporter for an Israeli TV network? Of course. But it was no gesture to Israel or a hint at normalizing relations. The reason I was granted a visa and was allowed to report from Riyadh was that singling out one reporter from the traveling press and banning him from entry would have caused unnecessary friction, and bad publicity for the Kingdom, in a visit that was all about showing America and the world how friendly and accommodating this Gulf nation can be.

4. Inspired by Trump, Bibi Moves to Curb Public Media

Trump’s federal government gutting blitz reached America’s public broadcasting this month, with an executive order basically ending federal funding for NPR and PBS. For the new administration, public broadcasting serves as a perfect target, combining both the DOGE drive to cut every possible government-funded service (even if, in the case of NPR, that portion is a mere sliver of the service’s overall budget), and the deep-rooted disdain in Trump circles for media outlets that have dared to sound a critical voice.

In Israel, the Netanyahu coalition has been paying attention.  It has already been considering legislation that would curb public broadcasters, and on Sunday the Israeli cabinet greenlighted a bill that would potentially endanger the freedom of all private news broadcasting networks. The bill, initiated by communications minister Shlomo Karhi, seeks to redesign the agency in charge of regulating broadcasting in a way that would provide the government extensive authority on licensing broadcast networks and penalizing them for infractions, thus consequently impacting their content. The main crux of the legislation is setting up a new regulating board in which the government would, essentially, have a say in picking most of its members. The bottom line: If the bill passes, the government will be able to appoint a majority of the regulating body’s members. These members will have the authority to oversee all commercial networks.

The attorney general’s office announced early Sunday that it opposes the bill since the government did not follow the rules of transparency in presenting it to the public. The cabinet chose to ignore its own AG’s advice and to move forward with the bill. The next stop: the Knesset, where the government enjoys a safe majority that is likely to approve the legislation in the coming months.

5. The Eurovision Song Contest Is the New War Frontier

It’s that time of the year when all of Europe sets its sights on a multinational song contest, while Americans watch from afar, bemused at those silly Europeans and their obsession with a pop music competition where Latvians and Turks, Finns and Brits, Czechs and Albanians compete over a title no one cares about for a song no one will ever remember.

Israel is all in, too, and has actually been quite successful in recent years.

That in itself could explain the Israeli media’s obsession with covering every detail of the Eurovision Song Contest. But this year was special. Israel’s representative, Yuval Raphael, is a survivor of the October 7 attack. Raphael, 24, attended the Nova music festival and hid in a concrete shelter as Hamas terrorists rampaged the place murdering hundreds. She survived by hiding for eight hours under bodies of fellow festivalgoers who were killed in the shelter.

This tragic story would have been enough to make this year’s Eurovision a top news story for Israelis. But the media was focused on Raphael’s struggles after arriving in Basel, Switzerland, where the competition took place this year. 

As expected, there were well-attended pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel protests across Basel. There was also the now-usual sight of Palestinian flags waved while Raphael performed during the rehearsals. And there was even an attempt to disrupt her show during the competition, when two pro-Palestinians in the audience attempted, unsuccessfully, to enter the stage and spray Raphael with red paint.

All these are, of course, newsworthy, and the Israeli media was right to report on them. But the coverage went way beyond straightforward reporting. Raphael was depicted by the media as an Israeli heroine. (Israel Hayom carried a story condemning a BBC anchor for reporting on Raphael without mentioning her survival story, calling the report a “disgrace.”) Protesters in Basel were described at times in the Israeli press as Hamas supporters, and Raphael’s great achievement, winning second place, was seen as no less than a victory for the entire Jewish world. “The world has spoken: The Eurovision vote silenced haters of Israel,” exclaimed Maariv, a centrist daily, after the votes were tallied. And on One, a leading sports-centered website, editors said it is “time to thank the Jewish people around the world” for voting for Raphael’s song.