How Netanyahu’s government is changing the media at risk of increasing media bias in Israel | Media News

Press freedom organizations and opposition lawmakers have criticized the sweeping media overhaul by Israel’s right-wing coalition as part of a legal battle that parliament has yet to resolve ahead of elections this year.

The parliament, or Knesset, last week approved the law that would give the government more say in the media and in Israel. The controversial measure removes traditional protections, removes requirements for minimum standards of journalism and raises long-standing limits on ownership, among others.

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After the July 17 vote, watchdog groups, including the Union of Journalists in Israel, along with opposition parties, successfully petitioned the Supreme Court of Justice to suspend parts of the law. They warned that some measures that should take effect immediately, including the removal of the limit of ownership of several press outlets and the removal of media policies, could permanently disrupt the October 27 election, which could affect its results.

The government has until Sunday to respond, after which the court will decide whether to block, extend, or allow the laws to go into effect. Other, non-controversial and immediate parts of the law were left to stand.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never voted. He is currently bound by a 2020 antitrust agreement that prohibits him from participating in government decisions that could affect his position. ongoing corruption casewhere, among other charges, he is accused of using his position to influence the media coverage of his administration.

However, the Minister of Communications, Shlomo Karhi, thanked Netanyahu directly, saying: “Mr. Prime Minister, I want to thank you and tell you that the task you gave me four years ago – to organize media reforms – today has been successfully completed.”

Israeli media reported that such an order by Netanyahu would be a violation of his agreement. Neither the Prime Minister’s Office nor the Communications Ministry responded to Al Jazeera’s questions about whether Netanyahu’s position on the law represented a conflict. However, Mr Karhi later said that he had obtained a legal opinion confirming that the Prime Minister was not in breach of the anti-interest clause.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi have proven time and again that they are enemies of independent journalism in Israel,” Martin Roux, a Reporters Without Borders monitor, told Al Jazeera.

“This means that they are attacking the right of every Israeli citizen to obtain reliable information from a variety of sources.” This has been true for many years, and it is evident every day as the legislative elections, which will be held at the end of October, are approaching.

In a social media post, Karhi said the new law would lead to “propagation of right-wing extremists and limited laws”.

“After fighting everything that could be done from the deep world, tycoons, lawyers, government officials and dangerous networks – we managed to accept the revolution of social media.”

‘Expanding propaganda techniques’

However, for many observers, there was nothing new in the reformation of the media accustomed to the government, with a critical coverage of several wars carried out by Israel and international anger that led many to withdraw from the national debate.

“The change is part of Netanyahu’s reformation – undermining the remnants of critical reporting and press freedom in the country, and expanding Netanyahu’s propaganda channels,” Israeli academic and London-based media expert Ayala Panievsky told Al Jazeera.

He cited the right-wing Channel 14, which he said promoted Israeli war crimes and provided unconditional support to what he described as the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.

“In 2020, they expanded the “Big Lie” in the US elections, saying that Trump won the elections – they can do the same in the following Israeli general elections in October, if Netanyahu’s agreement is really lost,” said Panievsky, expressing the same concerns among academics and legal experts who were raised by accusations from Netanyahu’s lawmakers. The committee, Dean Livne, “was politically biased”.

Researchers and observers from all over Israel have been there for a long time to point for expressing strong nationalism about many things happening in Israel and the lack of land given to the Palestinians and the suffering of the Palestinians.

When the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry he finished in September 2025 that Israel had killed people in Gaza, the Israeli Foreign Ministry denied the findings saying “distorted and false“, the document was heard in the shopping center instead of being reviewed.

A subsequent Molad report found that only 3 percent of Channel 12’s early coverage of the Gaza war covered the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with only two of the 206 images showing the killing of Palestinian civilians. Elsewhere, allegations of Israeli war crimes, including sexual abuse, are either ignored or denied by the government, observers told Al Jazeera.

Tel Aviv-based political analyst Ori Goldberg said: “There is no sense of unity with a journalists have been killed there, or those who do not allow him to enter. They just weren’t named.”

Similarly, the various military talks initiated by the Netanyahu administration often involve former officials, who did not question the necessity of the war, the only difference being the blame, Goldberg said.

However, even this compliance was not enough for the prime minister to fight the election which depended on the appearance of threats and enemies to continue his political career.

“Netanyahu should always be seen as pushing the envelope,” Goldberg said. “He wants a media that will cover his every word, but that he can portray as the enemy within.”