Broadcasting Vengeance

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Last week, three Israeli lawyers submitted a letter to Israel’s attorney general. The group, representing a collection of left-wing Israeli human rights organizations, accused Channel 14—a popular far-right commercial television station known for its full-throated support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—of broadcasting rhetoric so violent as to be illegal. Over the past year, they argued, Channel 14 has regularly aired broadcasts in which pundits and guests have called for war crimes, including genocide, against Palestinians. The lawyers—Michael Sfard, Alon Sapir, and Einat Gayer—seek a criminal investigation; there is a decent chance that will happen, because of international scrutiny, though it’s much harder to say whether Channel 14 will face any meaningful penalty. The letter arrived after nearly a year of violence in Gaza, as Israel escalated attrition to its north, in Lebanon. The attack of last October 7, during which Hamas-led fighters killed roughly twelve hundred residents of Israel and took hundreds more hostage, “cast Israeli society into deep mourning, profound sorrow, and understandable, blazing fury,” the lawyers wrote. It’s precisely those conditions, they observed, “upon which moral monsters may emerge—and are indeed emerging.” Israeli strikes have killed more than forty thousand Palestinians.

Another letter—submitted to Israel’s Second Authority for Television and Radio, which regulates commercial broadcasts—argues that Channel 14’s coverage has violated the terms of its license. (The Second Authority name is something of a historical artifact; early on, most of Israel’s TV and radio stations were public, and this regulator emerged as a mechanism to oversee private broadcasters.) This letter calls on the regulator to impose sanctions—fines, potentially suspension. The system is comparable to that of the Federal Communications Commision in the United States; when a network airs something against the rules, the regulator is meant to step in. That has so far not happened in response to any of the statements the human rights groups flagged as promoting genocide. “If the authority identifies a potential violation of the law, it requests a response from the channel and, if necessary, takes appropriate action,” a Channel 14 spokesperson told me. “None of the statements presented to us have served as the basis for a complaint.” 

Appended to both letters is a disturbing catalogue of offenses. Researchers from the human rights groups—Zulat for Equality and Human Rights, the Democratic Bloc, and Association for Fair Regulation—compiled their list by poring over all of the programming broadcast on Channel 14 since the start of the war. They identified at least fifty statements that they believe called for genocide and more than a hundred and fifty that they see as advocating crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the mass expulsion of civilians from Gaza and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. “A media channel found in every home in Israel, watched by soldiers and officers acting on behalf of the State of Israel in Gaza, has become a solicitation machine for the commission of war crimes,” the lawyers wrote. “This is not just a slip of the tongue by one person or another, but rather a systemic approach.”

Among the examples cited: Danny Neuman, a political commentator, is quoted as having said that Israel “should have killed a hundred thousand Gazans” within two days of the start of the war. “Only a few are possibly human there,” he added. “Over ninety percent are terrorists and are involved!” There’s Yaakov Bardugo, a commentator, quoted as having declared, “We need to bomb indiscriminately.” There’s also this from Itamar Fleischman, a Channel 14 panelist: “Victory will only happen here on one condition—on condition that the Jews destroy the anti-Semitic rats that did these things.” He added, “It needs to be total annihilation. Don’t be afraid of words like ‘humanitarian disaster.’”

In addition to on-air rhetoric, the human rights groups identified hundreds of posts by Channel 14 personalities on social media. Among them was a tweet by Shimon Riklin, a host who, on the evening following the October 7 attacks, wrote on X that “Gaza should be wiped off the face of the earth.” According to the lawyers, material published by third-party platforms such as X is relevant to the case because anchors, Riklin among them, owe their traction on social media to their popularity as Channel 14 presenters, and the channel benefits from the online exposure that incendiary social media comments bring. (Channel 14 did not respond to questions about its social media policy.)

Netanyahu’s relationship with Channel 14 goes back years, to the time when it was Channel 20, called the “Heritage Channel,” widely known as Israel’s version of Fox News. (Its controlling shareholder, Yitzchak Mirilashvili, is a prominent Israeli investor; he was born in Russia and educated in the United States, at Tufts University, then went on to found Russia’s largest social network.) Netanyahu elevated the network’s profile by sitting down with its interviewers, granting rare access while receiving flattering coverage. In 2018, Netanyahu provided legal cover that enabled the network, previously licensed to provide educational material, to offer commercial news programming without needing to fulfill the financial and logistical obligations required of other broadcasters—“a major change,” said Oren Persico, a staff writer at Seventh Eye, an independent Israeli publication that covers press freedom, that “gave them a lot of discounts.” The network moved to Channel 14 in 2021, and its audience has since skyrocketed.

As prime minister, Netanyahu has drawn communications regulation under his close purview, and his relationship with the press came directly into play when he was, only a short time ago, indicted for breach of trust, bribery, and fraud. (He has since gone to trial, though in 2023 his government overhauled the country’s judiciary, effectively making it impossible for the courts to declare him unfit for office.) “Netanyahu justified the changes he made to the country’s media by saying that he wants to pluralize the media landscape, to give an opportunity for right-wing voices who are more representative of Israeli society,” Persico told me. “In fact, if you look at his dealings, what he wants is a media with total loyalty.” Generally speaking, Netanyahu and his allies have responded brashly to press criticism, and that has been felt more acutely of late. Itamar Ben-Gvir, a member of Netanyahu’s cabinet, has referred to Haaretz, a left-leaning Israeli newspaper, as “the Hamas daily.” Al Jazeera, which Netanhayu has called “Hamas’s mouthpiece,” has been thrown out of Israel, its offices raided. 

Language inciting genocide is a crime according to international and Israeli law. Last December, when Israel went to trial before the International Court of Justice over the war in Gaza, the court cited statements made by Eyal Golan, a pop star, that were aired on Channel 14—“Erase Gaza completely, don’t leave a single person there”—as evidence of “clear direct and public incitement to genocide, which has gone unchecked and unpunished by the Israeli authorities.” At the time, Israeli representatives agreed to take action to address the problem—according to the country’s law, individual statements need not be directly linked to specific actions to be considered incitement of genocide. But since the ICJ’s provisional ruling, in January of this year, Channel 14 has not faced penalties. (An Israeli state prosecutor considered a probe into Golan’s statements but ultimately decided not to press charges.)

Having received the letter from the human rights organizations, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who has had an adversarial relationship with Netanyahu, is supposed to decide whether to open a criminal investigation into Channel 14. If she does, the network would have the opportunity to speak with law enforcement, though it is not legally obligated to do so. Based on the findings of the investigation, Baharav-Miara could then summon Channel 14 to a hearing, where the network would be allowed, but not required, to present an argument. Based on that hearing, Baharav-Miara would then decide whether to indict; if she does, the channel’s representatives would be required to come to court.

The Second Authority did not respond to requests for comment. In an email, the Channel 14 spokesperson called the allegations against the network “grossly defamatory, untrue, and being made maliciously by organizations who are politically motivated.” Channel 14 contends that “it has been the target of an aggressive campaign led by Israeli ‘woke’ organizations and activists” aiming to suppress free speech. “As for the quotes cited in the complaint, many are either taken out of context or were made by guest interviewees who have voiced the same opinions on other channels.” (It’s true that guests on other networks have made incendiary statements about Palestinians; at least some of them were not invited back afterward.)

Channel 14 also noted that two of the human rights groups involved in last week’s complaint had filed one before, to the Israeli High Court of Justice. “Because the previous complaint was deemed entirely baseless,” per Channel 14, “the High Court recommended that Plaintiffs withdraw the pleading so that it could be deleted.” Judges did decline to move that original petition forward as a legal case, for lack of sufficient evidence. But it was meaningfully different, Yossi Abadi, the lawyer who represented those petitioners, told me, because that earlier complaint concerned “fake news and a smear campaign against the judicial system,” mostly predating the horrors of last October. That filing did not pertain to crimes against humanity; this new complaint reflects the coverage and cultural climate over the past year. “Channel 14 has misled you,” Abadi argued. “This is merely a smoke screen intended to obscure the seriousness of the event.” 

In the letters submitted last week, the lawyers concluded by writing that they would wait thirty days for responses before recommending that the human rights groups consider further legal action. According to Israeli law, the broadcasting regulator and the attorney general have forty-five days to respond, and they can request an extension. A lack of response would be considered an “unreasoned rejection” of the claims, which would entitle the petitioners to appeal or to bring their complaints before a judge. “We urge the attorney general to initiate an urgent investigation to ensure that such incitement is neither legitimate nor permissible in Israel,” Einat Ovadia, the director of Zulat, said. “We believe it is time for those who instigate violence to face consequences.” Beleaguered as it may be, the country’s legal system might still hold some sway, the petitioners hope. What that means for Israeli public opinion is another question altogether.

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Yona TR Golding was a CJR fellow.