Arutz Sheva's Shimon Cohen analyzes some of the passing week's news items, as spun by Israeli mainstream media.
It was fascinating to follow the media on the day after the revelation of the identity of the suspected murderer of the Oshrenko family. The suspect turned out to be a disgruntled and jealous former employee – an immigrant from Russia, like the victims – who confessed to police that he hacked his boss's family to death. As expected, the media gave prominence to all those who spoke against the racist tones that lumped together all of the immigrants from Russia as if they were one violent mass.
But the strange thing was that the very same media exhibited none of this level-headed love of its fellow man just one day earlier, when it discussed the Teitel affair. On that day, the chatter was about the “poisoned garden” in which the man grew, the atmosphere in his social circle, the world views etc.
So what is the difference? You tell us.
Uzi does it
In the same context, here is a small story from Monday morning, the day that the gag order on the Teitel affair was removed.
Immediately after the publication of the news about Teitel, the Arutz Sheva website editor, Uzi Baruch, received a telephone call from a researcher for one of the main news talk shows in one of Israel's large radio stations. She wanted her show to interview him about Teitel's arrest. Uzi scratched his head, then scratched it again, but could not figure out what the connection was between him and Teitel, or between him and the investigation and the arrest. After all, he is not exactly a member of the security establishment.
When he gave up trying to find a link between himself and the Teitel affair, Uzi asked the researcher to help him understand the connection. She said that as the editor of Arutz Sheva, he must have something to say about the event. Uzi on his side said that he does not remember calling her radio station and asking to interview the host of her show when the suspect in the Oshrenko murder was caught – even though both of them are secular people from the greater Tel Aviv area.
The poor researcher. It seems she thought that Teitel was an official representative of the Israeli Right, or something like that.
Let us breathe
On “regular” days, when suspected family-slayers and Jewish terrorists murderers aren't being arrested, we are all under a massive attack by an unrelenting media campaign. This is true of each and every one of us – yet we are no more than extras in this event.
The aim of the campaign is to let the children of foreign workers remain in Israel (along with their parents). Naturally, a campaign needs to be directed against something or someone. That someone, in this case, is Minister Eli Yishai. It really does not matter if other ministers – Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz for instance – share his opinion. It really makes no difference if the security establishment – represented by Interior Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovich and Defense Minister Ehud Barak – is also part of the effort to block the tide of illegal immigration. For Israel's newspaper readers, there is only one target for the arrows of rage, and that target is Eli Yishai.
That is why the oversized lead stories in the large newspapers looked like identical twins separated at birth. Both played up pictures of sweet, smiling children of foreign workers, and the headlines next to them made clear what side the editors were on in the debate. Down at the bottom, they put a picture of a frowning Eli Yishai.
Here is Maariv, with the heartrending headline: “The children plead: please let us stay in Israel.”
And here is Yediot Acharonot, which determined that the decision to let the children (and their parents) stay in Israel until the end of the school year was “a breath of air.” The unspoken message is that if the reader wants the children (and their parents!) repatriated, he is sentencing them to suffocation. And of course, the enemy of the people is called Eli Yishai.
Insensitivity
As part of the same campaign this week, we heard Army Radio's financial reporter Matan Chodorov preparing us for an interview with the Finance Minister with the following introduction: “Minister Steinitz's position is important. He is known as a serial objector to foreign workers. The question is – will he know how to show sensitivity in the matter of the children.”
What objectivity. Chodorov is basically challenging the minister: will he be able to get over his basic prejudice against foreign workers and show sensitivity in the matter of the children? After an opening like that, what can the minister say? Should he admit that he is insensitive? That he is heartless?
The qualitative minority
This is the transcript of the ending of an interview by Channel 2 anchor Oded Ben-Ami with dissident media man Dudu Elharar.
The conversation was about an interview that Elharar gave to impostors sent by Peace Now, who pretended to be religious student-reporters and got Elharar to say some things he might not otherwise have said, like a comparison between Ariel Sharon and Adolf Hitler. Elharar did not apologize, and simply repeated his positions. The tension between Ben Ami and Elharar was at near-fisticuff level. The dialogue went like this:
Ben Ami: There are many who think you went too far.Elharar: And there are many who do not.
Ben Ami: You did something that simply is not done.
Elharar: It is something that is indeed done. And hopefully, there will be many more people like me who will do the deed. And finally you will understand that you are three percent of the population. The entire Israeli media, you are only worth the comrades who voted Meretz. You are those people. But you are not the nation.
Ben Ami: We are three percent, and we are the quality.
Now we understand what runs through the mind of a person who manages a television new show on Channel 2 – and who until recently was IDF Spokesman. He thinks the three percent who voted Meretz are the Israelis of quality. You, viewer, need only decide if you are one of these people of quality or not.