“If they understand how to make peace the way they understand the media, there will be no peace,” said a disappointed senior Israeli journalist on condition of anonymity, who like his colleagues failed to pass the “selection” by the US State Department and was not invited to cover the June 25 conference in Bahrain.

Up to the last minute, only a few Israeli journalists were invited to the opening conference for the presentation of the US administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. In fact, several days prior to the event, Israeli journalists were surprised to learn that some of them would not be allowed to cover the conference. After waging numerous battles against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over freedom and independence of the media — which he constantly belittles as “leftist” and “Bolshevik” — top Israeli journalists found out that America under Donald Trump is no longer the cradle of democracy.

About a week prior to the conference, top Israeli journalists covering diplomatic, political and economic affairs appealed as individuals and as a group to the State Department, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and even to President Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, requesting accreditation. Six invitations only were granted: Yisrael Hayom newspaper owned by US casino owner and Republican mega donor Sheldon Adelson, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Channel 12 News and Channel 13 News.

Yedioth Ahronoth, a mass circulation tabloid that also owns the most widely read news website in Israel, Ynet, was not invited. Nor was Israel’s Public Broadcasting Corporation Kan and top business and financial affairs journalists, despite the fact that the Bahrain meeting was billed as an “economic workshop.”