All of these issues need to be dealt with. But there are similar issues in the Labor party’s closet which have been hushed our plainly ignored by the nation’s media outlets.
To begin with, party leader Amram Mitzna has been accused of providing illegal allowances and ignoring city and national zoning regulations in handing out real estate to building contractors who then plowed portions of their illegal profits back into his election campaign, and provided him campaign offices for free. Next, there were two allegations of illegal campaign financing through the use of a foreign laundering account by Mitzna’s campaign for the party leadership. Likud activist Aviad Vissoly revealed on two instances that such financing was taking place. Last, there were allegations that MK Eli Ben-Menachem tried to pay off a challenger so that he could run unopposed for a spot on the new Knesset list – a spot he then won.
The police have claimed to be checking into all three sets of allegations. But the media have ignored not only the allegations themselves, but also the police investigations and the findings.
The result is that what was a Likud landslide a month ago may turn out to be an electoral tie with Labor, or even a loss.
Since 1977, the Likud has spent all but 6 years in power. During that time, it has enjoyed the rule of four prime ministers, at least two of whom have known how to play the media game. The whole world knows about Binyamin Netanyahu’s media savvy – an element he could not use to his favor in the 1999 election. And people are slowly coming to realize that Ariel Sharon, a man who had once been vilified as the most extreme hawk in Israel, but who enjoyed almost universal support when he called elections two months ago, is now suffering from the same malady.
The Israeli media’s unabashed, and almost universal, scorn for anything to the right of national suicide, is an old story. But the obvious glee with which they continue to impale the best of Israel’s leaders while ignoring equal or worse transgressions by people who pledge to lead us to our own annihilation, is something that cannot be tolerated for much longer.
This is not just a problem of Israel’s media, though. It is a cancer that is also endemic in Israel’s judiciary. Chief Justice Aharon Barak has made a career out of making sure that only legislation that either weakens the right or strengthens the left is allowed to pass unscathed from the Knesset. The Supreme Court as a whole has repeatedly shown its political bias toward Israel’s suicidal left. And Mishael Cheshin, who is at once both a Supreme Court Justice and the Chairman of Israel’s Central Elections Committee, has shown such an astonishingly obvious political bias that it is downright confusing how most of the parties in Israel still tolerate his presence on that committee.
During the process of approving Knesset candidacies, Cheshin was overrulled by the Committee regarding the candidacies of Baruch Marzel (which he wanted to block) and Ahmed Tibi, Azmi Bishara, and the Balad party (which he wanted to approve). Cheshin would rather have non-Jews who constantly honk on mightily about the evils of Israel and the glories of terrorism, who call from every rooftop for the annihilation of Israel, and who illegally visit Syria to show support for the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, than he would a patriotic Jew who puts his life on the line every day for the protection and defense of Jewish history, culture, and strength.
It was lucky for Israel, and for Zionism, that the Central Elections Committee saw through Cheshin’s personal political issues. But Cheshin did manage to salvage some of his honor on appeal. The Supreme Court allowed all the Arabs in question to run. That was no surprise. What was a surprise was that they also allowed Marzel to run.
The next day, Cheshin managed to get in yet another shot at Israel’s right. When Prime Minister Sharon went on national television to state his case before the Israeli people in an effort to stem the tide of voters away from the Likud that was created by a politicized and heavily biased media, Cheshin prevented him from speaking. After only a few minutes, he ordered th news conference off the air, claiming it was election propaganda.
In case Cheshin hasn’t noticed, we are in the middle of an election campaign. Practically every article published in a newspaper these days is election propaganda. Practically every interview on radio or television is election propaganda. But when a leftist journalist, analyst or expert is the one propagandizing, that is okay. When a leader of this country tries to defend himself against the talking heads, that is illegal. So sayeth Cheshin.
On the assumption that the Likud wins this election and forms the next government, the first order of business for Sharon should be to clean out the Israeli media. If balance cannot be restored through the current mainstream outlets, then the voices of other sectors of society must be given freer access to the Israeli market. This includes licensing of most existing radio stations, the creation of more television outlets, and the strengthening of other newspapers.
The political and religious right can do themselves a favor in this regard by improving the quality of their journalists and adjusting their message so that they can begin attracting an audience that isn’t made up solely of their own ideological soulmates.
But Sharon’s work will not be finished with the media. Judicial reform must be implemented so that judges are appointed for fixed terms by the Prime Minister and approved by a committee charged solely for this purpose. And lastly, the Central Elections Committee should be chaired by the President, not by a political appointee or a politicized judge.
In the meantime, Sharon and others who are openly threatened by a politicized judiciary and media should devote the last weeks of the campaign to a change in tactics. If the media and judiciary insist on fighting the election campaign for the left, then the right should make them the targets of their own campaigns.
It is high time that the attitudes of the civil service, judiciary and media fall into line with the attitudes of the citizenry they are supposedly meant to serve. These sectors are meant to uphold the rule of law, not the rule of the left. It is for the voter, not these sectors, to determine the political future of the country. These sectors are meant to serve the public not dictate to them.
Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission of the author only.
