Why is Israeli media attacking itself?

“Magazine,” a Saturday night news show on Channel 10, announced Feb. 20 that it had a major scoop. Dor Glick, its correspondent in Germany, had obtained exclusive footage of film director Udi Aloni referring to the Israeli government as “fascist.” The incident took place toward the end of this year's Berlinale, one of the most important film festivals in the world. Aloni’s entry, “Junction 48,” won the prestigious Audience Award in the Panorama fiction film category.

“Pay close attention to what our Channel 10 news camera caught,” the correspondent stressed to the show’s host and his audience at home, drawing everyone’s attention to his journalistic coup. “He didn’t realize that he was on camera.” Glick couldn’t emphasize it enough. He continued to repeat Aloni’s comment that by providing Israel with submarines, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was aiding and abetting Israel’s fascist government. On three separate occasions, the correspondent and hostess reiterated that Aloni's award-winning film, about a hip-hop performance in the Israeli town of Lod that was used to protest the occupation, had been funded by the Ministry of Culture and the Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts. “This was highlighted at the beginning and end of the film,” Glick noted.

It is quite safe to assume that if the Channel 10 correspondent had proposed footage of Aloni saying the same thing to an audience in Tel Aviv or Dimona, the show’s editor would have responded with a gaping yawn. Stories about how the Israeli government is applying fascist policies in the occupied territories have long since attained the status of “dog bites man” journalism. Not a week goes by without investigators from B’Tselem, Yesh Din and Rabbis for Human Rights offering TV news shows video of settlers attacking Palestinian farmers or destroying their property while Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers stand to the side, looking on indifferently. Clips like these only receive airtime when the violence is extreme.

Articles sharply critical of Israeli excesses in the occupied territories appear regularly in the Israeli press. Public figures, artists, thinkers and journalists along with peace and human rights activists openly condemn the way Palestinians living in the territories are constantly being robbed, not only of their land but also of their most basic freedoms. Terms like “fascist” and “racist” are bandied about casually, as are their counterparts, "traitor" and “enemy of Israel,” mostly on the right. They can be heard echoing through the corridors of the Knesset and are repeated incessantly on radio talk shows. The Ministry of Culture supports films and plays staring actors like Eitan Tiran, Moshe Ivgi, Gila Almagor and Rivka Michaeli, all of whom have expressed opinions similar to those voiced by Aloni. Yet despite threats by Culture Minister Miri Regev to withhold support, the government continues to fund them.