August 1, 2011, 5:13 PM
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Last Monday Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz gave an interview to Channel 2's news anchor Yonit Levy during the prime-time news broadcast. Levy began the interview with a revealing "question."
Oozing professional probity, Levy said, "I assume you came here armed with wonderful data about the drop in unemployment and rising economic growth, but I want to ask you, Mr. Steinitz if for all your data you've forgotten the people, you've forgotten an entire class of working people who can't live?"
Not that she has an opinion.
Levy's question encapsulates the pathology of the Israeli media and the public discourse it engenders. In the case at hand, it is true that the facts show Israel has never been economically better off. But how about "the people"?
Levy and her comrades want to discuss abstractions, not facts. Abstractions like the amorphous "people," are attractive because they are meaningless and are therefore subject to politically correct interpretation. Facts are unattractive because they contradict the media's effectively uniform worldview and prejudices.
Due to this uniformity, for the past three weeks Israel's public discourse has been dominated by the media-supported "social justice" protesters. Three weeks ago fewer than a hundred protesters set up tents along Tel Aviv's tony Rothschild Boulevard and demanded lower rents in Tel Aviv - Israel's highest priced real estate market.
Ignoring the basic laws of supply and demand, the media immediately embraced the protesters as "the authentic voice of the nation." And so Israel's newest "social revolution" began.
And it has all been downhill from there.
If the protesters' initial demand for government intervention in the Tel Aviv rental market was simply dumb, their current demands are little less than a declaration of economic war against Israeli prosperity.
The protesters' are effectively demanding no less than the destruction of Israel's free market and a reversion to the state-controlled economy that doomed Israel to economic sclerosis for its first 45 years of independence.
They want the state to determine rents and nationalize housing construction. They want the government to get more involved in price controls than it already is. They want free day care and medicine. And they want cheap gas, cheap electricity and low taxes. And they want to punish the rich. Oh, and they want to live in communes.
To get a sense of just how economically deranged their economic views are, it suffices to consider what they claim is their most pressing demand. The leaders of the protests, (more on them later), announced on Monday that from their perspective, the first order of business is for the government to cancel its legislative program to reform the Israel Lands Authority.
That plan involves streamlining the process for approving construction tenders and removing most of the hidebound bureaucratic obstacles that make it nearly impossible to build anything in this country. By removing government barriers to increasing the supply of housing, the government aims to reduce housing prices, in accordance with the basic laws of supply and demand.
But the protesters will have none of it. If construction increases, that means that contractors will get rich. And that, they maintain, is unacceptable. From their perspective, the government has to lower housing prices without increasing supply.
It doesn't take a degree in economics to recognize that this argument is complete nonsense. But most Israeli news consumers do not realize how fundamentally ridiculous the protesters are being. They do not realize it because the media are not in the business of providing facts and data. They are in the business of taking sides.
And in the eyes of the media, the protesters are the good guys and the government is the bad guy.
Aside from ignoring the absurdity of the protesters' economic demands, the media have joined them in demonizing Prime Minister Netanyahu and his haredi and nationalist political partners. The latter are castigated as parasites who exploit the "nation," (of which they are apparently not a part), for their own selfish ends.
For instance, on Channel 2's Sunday newscast, senior economic commentator Nehemiah Stressler argued that in order to pay for all the new welfare programs the good people on Rothschild Blvd. are demanding, the government must stop giving away money to the haredim and the settlers.
Stressler claimed that haredim are able to purchase their apartments "a quarter the price." Although he didn't explain what price he was referring to, presumably he meant a quarter of the price of housing in Tel Aviv. But Stressler failed to mention that most of the building for haredi communities is in inexpensive, peripheral towns like Beitar Illit, not in urban centers.
As for the settlers, it is difficult to see how they are treated well. In 2009 the government banned all Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria for ten months.
Since the ban was lifted, housing starts have still been few and far between. Moreover, this politically motivated act had negative repercussions for the national housing market. As Globes reported in January, until 2009, housing starts in Judea and Samaria constituted 4-5 percent of the national total. By then end of last year, they comprised less than a third of one percent of total housing starts. Consequently, families who would have purchased homes in Judea and Samaria were forced instead to compete with families who wanted to buy homes outside the areas, thus artificially raising the overall price of housing.
The media's contemptuous dismissal of reality in favor of misleading slogans and scapegoats goes hand in hand with their active steps to deceive the public about the identity and agenda of the protests' organizers.
A poll released on Monday showed that 75 percent of the public supports the protests. The main reason that the protests have managed to garner sympathy from the general public is because with the help of the media, the protest leaders have hidden their identity and agenda from the public.
At every opportunity, the protesters claim they are apolitical and the media go along with them. Yet as a handful of bloggers have shown, more than eighty percent of the protest leaders are professional far Left activists. For instance, Maariv bloggers Uri Redler and Rotem Sela researched the affiliation of all the speakers at the July 23rd rally in Tel Aviv. They found that out of 27 speakers, 21 are known leftist activists affiliated with Hadash, the communist party, with Meretz, with the New Israel Fund, with the Nationalist Left proto-party, and with the anarchists.
Redler and Sela also exposed that several "grassroots," leaders are in fact professional political operatives affiliated with communist politicians and radical pressure groups. For instance, an activist named Tzika Bashour announced on Facebook that he would begin a general strike on August 1. Yediot Ahronot and Ynet covered his move as an authentic call of distress by an Average Joe.
The papers failed to mention that Bashour is a public relations executive who ran communist MK Dov Hanin's campaign for the Tel Aviv mayoralty.
The media's manipulation of the public in the service of their political agenda is nothing new. For the past two decades every disastrous strategic initiative Israel has adopted was the product of massive media campaigns.
In 1993 the media rallied unanimously behind the Rabin-Peres government's decision to embrace the PLO and give Yasser Arafat and his terrorist armies land, political legitimacy, guns, and money. The more than one million Israelis who actively participated in demonstrations against this disastrous decision in subsequent years were demonized as the Israeli equivalent of Arab terrorists and potential assassins.
In 1997, when a handful of European Union financed activists formed the Four Mothers organization calling for the IDF to surrender southern Lebanon to Hezbollah, the media heralded the group as a "true grassroots movement."
The media blocked out all voices - including IDF commanders - that warned an IDF withdrawal would serve as a springboard for a Hezbollah takeover of Lebanon and lead to war. They demonized opponents of surrender as warmongers with the blood of IDF soldiers on their hands.
Had it not been for the media, the Four Mothers' campaign would have ended before it began. But due to media manipulation, within three years, a majority of Israelis became convinced that it made sense to surrender to Hezbollah.
In the lead-up to Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, the media again demonized the more than one million Israelis who actively opposed the plan. Voices warning of the dire strategic consequences of surrendering Gaza were silenced. Politicians who opposed the plan were attacked as warmongers. The media gave voice to those calling for open warfare against opponents of the withdrawal, and violence against the plan's opponents was openly encouraged by the media.
Since the Lebanon withdrawal, the media have repeatedly led campaigns demanding that Israel bow to Hezbollah and Hamas demands and release of hundreds of terrorists in exchange for live and dead Israeli hostages. Opponents of such releases are demonized as heartless extremists.
In the aftermath of the Second Lebanon War, reservists released from service began marching to Jerusalem demanding the resignations of then prime minister Ehud Olmert, then defense minister Amir Peretz and then IDF chief of general staff Dan Halutz for their failed leadership of the war. The media scuttled the reservists' protest by demonizing them as closet right wingers.
Israelis stereotypically boast that we are nobody's suckers. And yet, the very same people who refuse to be suckers have been suckered into repeatedly supporting the most devastating policies any democracy has adopted in modern times.
This makes sense. After all, how is anyone to be expected to understand what is happening when the media systematically hide the truth from the public? How can anyone be expected to recognize they are being hand when, as Yonit Levy made clear in her "question" to Steinitz, the media are happy to dismiss facts when those facts contradict their interests as a class?
The only solution to this situation is competition. Israel's media market is able to operate as a closed guild because government regulations on media licenses have placed the same people destroying our discourse in charge of deciding who gets a broadcast license and what broadcasters can broadcast.
This has to end. Just as Israel's economic success owes to the government's withdrawal from the markets, so Israel's ability to have a rational, truthful, fact-based public debate is entirely dependent on a government initiative to deregulate the media.
But it better act fast. For if the government does not act quickly, as we see today, the media guild will manipulate the uninformed public into believing that our best bet is to destroy our prosperity, just as they convinced us before to destroy our security.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
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So if the extremist left media have all the power in Israel why bother with the worthless,powerless political class.
If the Prime Minister and his hand picked Defense Minister are not responsible for their weak,defeatist decisions to retreat and surrender and it's all the media's fault why even bother electing such weak,useless non-leaders.
Why are the politicians so spineless and weak that they can't even knock out or weaken this in house threat ?
Think of all the money going ot waste for a PM,Knesset,and their salaries.
Are you going to blame Netanyahu's capitulation on Monday to Obama's 67' borders on the media also ?
(Funny how they work closely when their agenda's mesh.So far they're covering up for Netanyahu's capitulation to Obama and hiding it from the public)
The truth is that empty,phony,egotistical blowhards who make good speeches and stand for nothing and who can not stand up and fight the media liars or anyoneare elected while those with strong moral fiber are cast aside as un-electable.
You take a smart,preppy,showboat,known betrayer and scumbag like Netanyahu over principaled men with spotless records and this is what you get.
It's going to take a major war or a revolution to clean up the godless,marxist mess that has poisoned Israel.
It's evident that the bootlicker Netanyahu is a failure and not up to the job and you have some blame for standing with this weak kneed loser whose middle name is 'capitulate' for so long.
Caroline,
A serious question: how did it come to be that the mainstream media in both the U.S. and Israel are so consistently left wing? Is it that the profession of journalism, whether print or broadcast, mainly attracts people who want to save the world via leftist means? I suspect that left wing ideology with its utopian slant appeals especially, though not exclusively to young people, though there are many older journalists who should have outgrown that brand of naivete but have not.
-Charles
Leave it to the media to orchestrate a three-ring circus under the canvas of liberalism. These ringmasters direct parading elephants, dancing bears, and silly clowns called NGOs, activists, and left-wing politicians. These spectacles create thunderstorms during the dry seasons of the news cycle, particularly when the government in power is detested by the cultural elites.
Wonderful, fact-based article. Interestingly, the exact same thing has happened/is happening in America. But it isn't enough to expose the media's agenda - we must understand why they have it. Only by understanding what motivates them can we truly strike at the heart of the matter; and when we do, we will find ourselves in spiritual warfare.
So much of what you have written reminds me of the media here in the U.S.
''Israelis proud not to be suckers.''
Well, that's quite an unfounded statement.
I've only been in Israel for a short time (about 6 yrs. now) & I can say that a great many Israelis definitely are suckers.
They're uninformed, especially on economic matters, the result of a really crappy educational system. Clueless is about the right description.
Just look at what Israelis swallow:
A dysfunctional political system that is nothing less than multi-party bolshevism.
Bureaucracy as far as the eye can see.
Some of the lowest quality politicians in the Western world.
A judicial system (especially the High Court) that has usurped the authority of the state, with an ideology hostile to that very state.
We have abandoned our educational system, particularly our universities, to left-wing cranks & anti-Semites.
We have allowed our economy to become an oligarchy that screws us in every aspect of life, bleeding us dry.
You want me to continue?
Suckers is an understatement.
Caroline,
First, is it true Netanyahu has agreed to '67 lines? If so, please, find out why. Is it for military equipment? The US needs Israel to buy from it, because of our manipulated economic situation, now.It can't afford to dismiss the
import of Israel, militarily, or for the financial gains ,meaning jobs and manufacturing.
Secondly, there has to be one, or two, wealthy individuals who like the new free-market system
that continues to make them wealthy, who can understand the importance of establishing TV and radio stations.
In the meantime, why can't counter-protests be convened? In the other newspapers, why can't explanations be done, or ads on TV and radio, and establish a web presence.
I, also, suggest, an investigation be done of from where the money is coming, and how much
is from foreign funds. Are they legal?
Put together a committee and strategize and plan tactics to defeat these people, for once.
Israelis may want to take into consideration that if anti-Semitism keeps growing unabated in Europe,etc.,Aliyah will increase and housing needs increase.
The funny thing is Israel doesn't have a free market economy... most of it are cartels regulated by the state - or favored monopolies like Bezeq and Israelis' spring time bete noire Tnuva in charge of dairy production. Sure, the protesters may be economic illiterates but the protests are motivated by real social and economic grievances. Israel's prosperity demands on moving to a real free market economy. Unfortunately, it may end up getting more of the Bolshevik central planning that characterized much of its early history.
Caroline. Once again I am amazed at the stupidity and greed of supposedly intelligent people. We don't need outside forces to destroy us. we're doing a marvelous job of self-destruction all in the name of political correctness and social injustice.
Ah yes, the Marxist media. It really is a good plan for them to infiltrate and take it over. It is only in this way that they can manipulate the public, against their own best interests.
Marxists never come to power by way of open and honest argument, open debate. They come to power by lying, cheating, stealing, threatening, intimidating, assault, and murder. That is their way and because it is not our's, they win.
When they say "by any means necessary" they mean exactly that. When they actually take power, it becomes far worse. Ask anyone from the former Soviet satellites and they will explain it to you in detail.
Only after you rid yourself of them does it get any better but their influence and the damage they have caused lingers for years. They must kill the truth and see to it that no one is exposed to it because they cannot defend against it. Their logic and principles are unsupported by rationality and facts and so therefore, they are replaced with lies.
That's how they work. That's how they seize power.
Instead of wasting money on demonstrations and other protests and initiatives the media don't cover and as a result no one knows about, the Land of Israel camp should work to create new media. The objective and impartial Fox News in the States is a newcomer but already extremely successful. When people are offered an alternative, they sense the truth.
It seems people are more likely to believe a lie than the truth. It seems the world is headed unavoidedly into a dark mess. I don't think your solution will work, but I hope I'm wrong. Maybe prayer and repentance should be tried.
evil ehud barak
Migron is targeted for eviction by the evil low court of Israel as are Jews of Judea and Samaria for a counterfeit peace in order to please their false god of no peace,America which Israel follows religiously.
No surprise that the rest of Israel who are so quick to sacrifice their brothers across the green line are feeling more pain and suffering.
MUCH MORE IS ON THE WAY !
Today
Netanyahu's left hand man Ehud Barak has blessed the Gaza terrorist enclave with more benefits for their rockets and terrorism as he punishes fellow Jewish settlers.
When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.
Proverbs 29:2
The godless left and the fearful appeasing right of Israel bring God's judgment on the nation and it's only begun.
The Jerusalem Post which you write for has its own biases. You cannot leave a talkback which is anti-modern-Christian, even to articles seemingly anti-Christian themselves.(David Turner's historical series, today's "Middle Eastern Christians and anti-Semitism by AYMENN JAWAD", and a Hagee hagiography, "Christians and Jews united for Israel - Wilder" - all comments have been completely scrubbed). Try it and see what happens. Even my innocuous smirk, "First they kill us, then they use us, now you want to be their friend? - realpolitik" gets axed. Nothing comparing the treatment of Kasztner to Schindler gets published. Why? Fear "where none pursueth" and sick unrequited masochistic Love.
Don't forget about Kadima's cloak and dagger involvement in the protests.
Based on the experience of the last few dozens of years one can conclude: Free market economy without clever regulation leads to the thriving of big monopolies, and to the relocation of production to labor cheap countries.
Small/medium enterprises are being swallowed up by the giants. Their workers are fired, and the production is moved to China.
So the free market economies are turning into nations of traders, service providers, and unemployed, while China (which has a mix of freedom and regulation) is turning into the worlds num 1 producer.
If our farmers, our production industry, and our local small/medium scale enterpreneurs are not protected by government regulation they will disappear.
Caroline i learned about the left wing media while i was a young paratrooper fighting in viet nam.left wing gas bag wally cronkite said that tet offensive was a loss for america.i did not see it that way because we rolled over the north vietnamese army and wiped out the so called viet cong.after that i all heard was a steady stream of anti-american bull from the the media.they lied.look at the sorry state of journalism today, so called reporters are little more than propaganda pushers for the national socialist democratic workers party.they are commie traitors led by president bongo whose mother and grandparents were commie traitors.he will sell us both down the river if he can so don't believe anything that comes out of the liar in chief's mouth.most americans i know support israel,not the paleosimmians.
It seems Marcel is one unhappy camper and it is hard to place this person's sentiments, other than he has a strong disliking for Netanyahu. He is like so many of the confused in the U.S. as well(of which we have plenty), anger is their only weapon not common sense. Both our countries suffer from the same malady in one other way, an advanced in age media which operates as the Fifth Column, peddling the leftist agenda with a power that overshadows the legitmate operation of the state and truth, thus making both slaves to their overly righteous (and wrong headed) editorial opinions. Good work again Caroline.
Israel is a disgrace for it's release of over 200 security prisoners from hamas in exchange for absolutely nothing; in honor of Ramadan! Whoever made that decision deserves to be tarred and feathered. At the same time kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is being held presumably incommunicato in a dungeon someplace probably in pain and probably forced to convert to Islam. I cannot change this situation, but, I will not support Israel with a nickel. I figure the visits to Pollard are just for PR. Netanyahu has some explaining to do, not to mention Uzi Landau and the rest of the sardines packed in salty brine.You jackasses are disgusting pieces of excrement.