Cabinet ministers were told Tuesday afternoon that the public rallies for the return of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit have encouraged Hamas to stiffen their stand and demand more from Israel before agreeing to release the soldier.
Voice of Israel government radio said that the culprit is the protest movement for Shalit but did not note that the media, particularly Voice of Israel and the Yediot Acharonot newspaper, have been instrumental in whipping up enthusiasm for demonstrators. The newspaper last week reported a "giant" rally for Shalit but then estimated the crowd at "several hundred people." It has kept the rally movement at the top of its Hebrew language Ynet web site for most of the past week.
The government instructed the ministers not to speak about the details of the report given to the Cabinet by the two government negotiators trying to close a deal for the return of Shalit, kidnapped during a terrorist attack on an IDF checkpoint at a Gaza crossing in June, 2006.
Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, without referring to the Israeli proposal, equated Hamas with the Nazi regime. He explained that both movements failed to understand that its unreasonable demands forced democracy’s back to the wall and resulted in an all-out military offensive.
Israeli media previously have helped create a collective public emotional atmosphere without accepting responsibility. During a meeting between Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu and his supporters several years ago, he roused the crowd to repeat in cadence, “The media are afraid,” meaning they feared him and the party.
Voice of Israel newscasters excitedly compared the cadence to Nazi chants and suggested that Netanyahu was guilty of incitement. The radio network then re-played a recording of the cadence several times during the day, each time spreading the message to tens of thousands of listeners.
The same network several years ago blamed the weather bureau for throwing the public into a panic by forecasting three days ahead of time that a fierce snowstorm was about to hit Israel.
After broadcasting the warning several times, newscasters then asked meteorologists why they whipped the public into a frenzy to stockpile food.