“B’Ivrit: A Hebrew Language Media Roundup” is a monthly look at the news through the eyes of Israeli media consumers.
1. When Antisemitism is “Re-Truthed”
Last Tuesday, Donald Trump took to his own social media network, Truth Social, and “ReTruthed” a short video. (“ReTruth” is the term used on Trump’s platform for repeating someone else’s post, just like re-tweeting on the platform formerly known as Twitter.)
It was an odd choice, one that raised many eyebrows across the pro-Israel sphere: The president-elect, less than two weeks before taking the oath of office, chose to post remarks made at Cambridge Union in October by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University economist known for spreading conspiracy theories and for blaming Israel for the world’s ills.
In the posted clip from the interview, Sachs starts off with a rant about former President Obama allegedly conspiring in secret to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria and accuses the media of covering up the story. He then moves on to Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing the Israeli prime minister of being responsible for America’s war in Iraq. “That war came from Netanyahu,” Sachs says, arguing that Netanyahu is an “obsessive” person convinced that the only way to beat Hamas and Hezbollah is by toppling the governments of Iraq, Syria and Iran. “He’s still trying to get us to fight Iran, this day, this week,” Sachs says in the video, adding that, “He’s a deep, dark son of a bitch, sorry to tell you, because he’s gotten us into endless wars and because of the power of all of this in the U.S. politics, he’s gotten his way.”
This one short video clip packed a lot of hate. Not only the direct insult aimed at the prime minister of Israel, but also the implicit claim that Israel (and “the power of all this in the U.S. politics”) somehow secretly controls U.S. foreign policy and is dragging America into wars that benefit Israel but are not in America’s interest. This is, needless to say, an antisemitic canard. Blaming the Jews, or the Jewish state, for drawing the United States into unnecessary wars is clearly a page from the classic antisemitic playbook.
The Israeli media, naturally, picked up the story.
“Trump shared a video of a professor who attacked Netanyahu, calling him a ‘son of a b***ch’ dragging America into wars,” read the headline of Ynet, Israel’s leading news website. The article suggested that by sharing this post, Trump “might reignite tensions with Netanyahu.”
The liberal Haaretz noted that the incident “reveals not only where the president-elect gets his information, but also how he is fed by false information on his social media platform.”
Mako, the news website of Channel-12, Israel’s leading network, devoted part of its report on Trump sharing Sachs’s comments to discussing Trump and Netanyahu’s “ups and downs” throughout the years. The report also mentioned the competition within Trump circles between foreign policy isolationists and supporters of Israel.
Kikar Hashabat, a popular ultra-Orthodox website, sought to explain what led Trump, who is perceived by many Israelis as a strong supporter, to share the anti-Bibi post. “It is not clear if it is an innocent mistake or a purposeful move,” the report speculated in its opening paragraph, later explaining that it could be that Trump’s aides “did not bother to remove from the clip the part in which the professor talks about Netanyahu.”
2. Biden Never Got Such a Free Pass
While the story of Trump sharing Sachs’s anti-Bibi diatribe was reported in Israel, it didn’t make major headlines and was largely buried among other news stories of the day. Furthermore, reporters and pundits tended to treat the issue as an amusing misunderstanding or a friendly jab. Some even supplied Trump with excuses, from not watching the video until the end, to merely expressing his disdain for foreign wars that have apparently been initiated by deep-state players.
That, of course, is perfectly fine. There’s no reason a random profanity shared by an elected leader should stop the presses. Except for the fact that the Israeli media has a pretty clear track record of clinging to random profanities of this sort when they come from the other side of the political aisle.
When Bob Woodward reported in his latest book, War, that Biden privately referred to Netanayhu, during a moment of disagreement with the Israeli leader, as a “f**ing liar,” and a “bad f**ing guy,” the story occupied headlines in Israel for an entire day. The same was the case in February, when Politico reported that Biden used similar profanities toward Netanyahu. And it didn’t start with Biden. In 2014, a report that an aide to then-president Barack Obama called Netanyahu “chickenshit,” captured the headlines in Israel for days.
This double standard shouldn’t come as a big surprise. The Israeli mainstream, as reflected by Israel’s media, tends to view Trump positively and the Democrats negatively. What should come as a surprise is that no one in the Israeli mainstream press bothered to point out the antisemitic nature of Sachs’s comments shared by Trump. Major media outlets in the Jewish state did not feel the need to call out a comment rooted deeply in anti-Jewish rhetoric.
3. Mapping the World for Israeli Soldiers
The Israeli media was abuzz last week with a story that took place far away from the country. An Israeli reservist, who served in Gaza this past year, was forced to flee Brazil, where he was vacationing, after being targeted for investigation there following a claim that he had committed war crimes in Gaza.
“Drama in Brazil: An IDF soldier was called for questioning for ‘war crimes’ but managed to escape the country,” read the Ynet headline. The right-wing Arutz 7 reported a day later, in no less of a dramatic tone, that “The soldier chased in Brazil returned home to Israel.” All Israeli media outlets devoted endless coverage to the incident and its possible implications for Israelis traveling the world. And in almost all cases, the term “war crime” came between quotation marks, making clear that the editors did not believe it was a claim worthy of any merit.
The soldier in question, 21-year-old Yuval Vagdani, posted videos on social media showing him and his fellow soldiers destroying Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip during the war. A pro-Palestinian organization collected the information and turned to authorities in Brazil, asking them to arrest Vagdani because the videos indicated participation in alleged war crimes.
His story captivated the Israeli press. “How did the world become an unsafe place for our fighters?” asked a popular podcast.
Mako offered a guide, titled: “What you can do to avoid getting arrested abroad.” The advice includes four guidelines: Don’t post videos or photos from your military service on social media; if you’ve already done so, immediately delete the photos and videos; make sure to carry the number of the local Israeli consulate wherever you travel; and finally, if arrested, say nothing and contact a lawyer. The guide did not include advice for Israeli soldiers to avoid taking actions that could be viewed as committing war crimes, or as the Israeli press put it—“war crimes.”
4. Covering Netanyahu’s Health Condition
Two weeks ago, Benjamin Netanyahu underwent prostate removal surgery. It was done under full anesthesia, and as such, the prime minister’s office was obliged to report that Netanyahu would not be able to perform his duties for the duration of the operation and would have to spend a couple of days in the hospital.
The Israeli press reported extensively about the procedure, dispatching reporters to Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital, airing a video prepared by Netanyahu’s aides showing the prime minister cheerfully leaving for the hospital, and carrying live Bibi’s doctors’ post-surgery statement that all had gone well.
The coverage was respectful and informative, as expected, but it also highlighted the fact that the Israeli press typically knows little and hardly reports about Israeli leaders’ health conditions. There is no mandatory disclosure of the prime minister’s health record, and the public usually learns about medical issues relating to its leaders only when they can no longer be hidden.
In 1983, then-prime minister Menachem Begin announced his resignation after battling health issues that incapacitated him. His spokesman initially told the media that Begin was suffering from a skin rash and therefore could not show up at the office. As days went by, no more information was provided, until Begin sent a brief letter of resignation. Only years later was it confirmed that he suffered from depression and that was what prevented him from keeping his job. How long was Begin unable to perform his duties, at a time when Israel was in the midst of a war in Lebanon? Nobody knew. The press didn’t have access to his medical records.
5. Cost of living creeps back into the headlines
In a country reeling from a vicious terror attack and engaged for over a year in a costly war on all fronts, the cost of living may seem a marginal issue. But on January 1, as a wave of price increases hit the markets, the Israeli press turned, for the first time since October 7, 2023, its attention to the daily financial struggles of ordinary Israelis.
“How to prepare for the new wave of price increases?” asked the centrist daily Maariv, which provided its readers with a list of products becoming more expensive and some tricks on how to find cheaper substitutes. The business daily Globes pointed to government policies as being at fault, while others accused major retailers of price gouging. Price increases are the last thing Israelis need right now. And yet somehow, for a day or two, they made the news coverage seem normal, focusing on the difficulties of daily life, rather than on the existential threats all around.
Top image credit: Bundesministerium für Europa, Integration und Äußeres (CC BY 2.0) / Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0).