Israel Increases Repression of Media

Journalists in Israel are alarmed and up in arms over the latest attacks on free Israeli media. So far, a radio station the government doesn't like has been forced off the air, and the Knesset voted to shut down an investigative tv station in retaliation for exposes about the Likud-led government. (The pretext was unpaid "licensing fees" and "royalties" owed to the government.) Nasty Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is suing the station for $1.2 million for good measure for exposing misdeeds of his.

A new, extremely punitive "libel" law will quash investigative journalism, and also targets bloggers, making them extremely vulnerable.

So far the only reportage of this in the U.S. media, which glorifies Israel and presents only the propaganda vision of that country, has been in the American Jewish publication The Jewish Daily Forward.



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