Thousands of words have been written about the all-out war Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been waging against the media. Countless articles have analyzed his scheme to control public broadcasting, a war that recently resulted in a new structure for the Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC), scheduled to be launched by the end of April. Accordingly, a news division will no longer be part of the corporation, but will instead operate independently.
Amateur psychologists have explained that the prime minister’s extreme interest in the corporation stems from his obsession with the media. Political analysts insist that the appointment of Geula Even-Saar, the wife of senior Likud member and former Minister Gideon Saar, as IPBC's senior host, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. They believe the appointment of the spouse of Netanyahu's political rival drove the prime minister to persist in his fight to close the IPBC before its launch. On April 3, Netanyahu seasoned his Passover greeting with a complaint that the media “does not reflect the feelings of the public” and proclaimed, “There’s a gloom industry here.”
