מכתב פתוח לרב איתן קופמן

Political scientists have been known to say that the Left believes in revolution, and the Right believes in evolution. The character of a regime is the result of conflicting philosophies regarding human nature. Marxism claimed that man is naturally good and all evil comes from society; therefore, one must fix society. The Right claims, as mentioned in the Torah, that man’s heart is naturally evil, and therefore one must provide him with a framework that will contain the evil and lead him toward good. From these two philosophies come the different attempts to reach this goal of achieving good. According to the Left, this will be accomplished only by way of revolution, which is by nature violent. The Right thinks that the existing situation should be improved gradually, and that doing is more significant than gabbing. The Likud party has set aside a ridiculous budget for presenting the proposed judicial reform to the public. The Right must begin a long process of understanding and internalizing the importance of PR as a governing, tool and so Likud has to start from the beginning: produce and engage in culture and art, theater and cinema, poetry and cultural events, publishing and conferences — every avenue that acts on the public and influences it. In the past, the quickest medium was radio — any event that took place was immediately broadcast to the public — as opposed to newspapers, which reported about events only a day later. In our era, the internet has superseded the radio and its authenticity, yet online material suffers from lack of professionalism in terms of fact-checking, background information, and proper editing. In addition, the internet is rife with fake news. The role of today’s journalist is no longer to provide factual reports but analysis and interpretation. In the past, it was assumed that the internet would redeem the media, as it would replace party-sponsored and profit-driven journalism. But obviously this is not the case because influence and profit-driven corporations have purchased or set up popular websites and social media tools which dictate their policies to writers and editors. On the other hand, the income of print media has dropped due to lack of advertising, and so it’s been forced to cut back on materials and expenses. Young people are thus hired, and they settle for less pay, longer hours, and no job security. This has actually increased the phenomenon of paid-for articles. Articles used to be marked as advertorial, to make it clear to readers that they were not journalistic reports. Today, however, seemingly newsworthy reports actually contain economic interests. There is also significant pressure to accept news items from government officials in exchange for a moment in the limelight. Along with the lack of income, there is the ideology and political direction from above. In other words, a link is created between money and politics: The owners of the media are wooed by the government and politicians, and they have become, through an unclear process, ideological as well. Haaretz makes an excellent case study. This process can be seen in the U.S. as well: Note the people who went to war against Trump. In the ideological process there is much that is unknown, which leads to total anarchy since few trust the media anymore. The ensuing chaos opens the door to the public being easily incited. One can see that the media play a significant role in presenting the ideologies most suited to them, which is in most cases Left leaning. Right-wingers have largely no media tools that expresses opinions, with notable few exceptions, and that’s besides their inability to rule and to have their opinions presented in good faith. Right-wing ideology definitely has access to big money. All it has to do is deploy it in the right direction. Dr. Yehudit Yehezkelly i s a senior political analyst. Dr. Ron Schleifer specializes in psychological warfare at Ariel University School of Communication

You may like