2025-06-05
31 分钟This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
That's a question the BBC's Anna Foster is trying to unpack with a panel of expert guests in a special edition of the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
Listen to the debate now.
Just search for the Global News Podcast wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Before the deadly Hamas attack on the 7th of October 2023,
the big story in Israel was an attempt to overhaul the judiciary by the most right-wing government in the country's history.
It prompted a wave of mass protests against what many Israelis saw as an attack on democracy.
But another big transformation was already underway that went somewhat under the radar.
Center stage again,
the man who's been called Israel's first TV prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
In 1999, he had lost an election and he even said,
next time I'm back, I'll have my own media outlet.
He starts to cozy up to Channel 14.
In the past few years, what some Israelis would describe as Fox News.
On Netanyahu's watch, some news outlets were nurtured,
while others were deprived of funding.
The union of journalists decried a cabinet order suspending public advertising in the newspaper Haaretz.
I think the Israeli government drafted a master plan to silence independent media in Israel and to weaken press freedom in Israel.
The justification for this sounds familiar.
Netanyahu is talking about some kind of deep state conspiracy against him.