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Is Hungary Already Here? Destruction of the Free Press in Israel from a Comparative Perspective

>> Read the full report in PDF

As part of the government’s effort to weaken democracy in Israel, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has been trying for the past two years to promote a series of laws seeking to impose restrictions on the free media in order to turn it into a submissive and disciplined body on the one hand, and to re-regulate the media market and subordinate it to economic and political interests on the other.

This document takes a comparative perspective of the harm to the free media under Netanyahu’s government in relation to the democratic erosion in Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who successfully seized control of the media not with blatant repression but with indirect means.  The current state of the media in Israel is examined according to the following criteria:

  • Delegitimization campaign against critical media
    • Suppression and seizure of public broadcasting
    • Extensive use of economic and regulatory tools to suppress opposition outlets and bolster sympathetic media
    • Legal and economic persecution by means of libel and defamation lawsuits, and at times even physical threats
    • Removal or restriction of foreign media

A systematic examination of the five main practices used to harm free media in democracies undergoing erosion reveals a clear and alarming picture. In Hungary, each of them has been implemented in full, creating media mobilized to support the regime and suppress pluralism and criticism. In Israel, although some of the practices are still in the process of being promoted and legislated, in each of the areas there are evident attempts to emulate the Hungarian model. Consequently, this review draws an unequivocal picture: Israel is following in Hungary’s footsteps, and the government’s modus operandi follows a consistent and systematic pattern seeking to eliminate the free press.

The so-called “reform” of the media, like the “judicial reform,” is not an isolated correction but part of a broader process of regime change aimed at collapsing the foundations of Israeli democracy. Just as civil society and the political establishment mobilized all their forces against Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s judicial coup, so too is a determined struggle required against the government and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi’s complementary moves. The threat is not theoretical but immediate and real, and is accelerating without generating a major public outcry. The people and their elected officials must understand that, similar to an independent judicial system, independent journalism is also a necessary condition for the subsistence of Israeli democracy.

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Dr. Maha Sabbah Karkabi

 

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Tel Aviv University (2015), a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Gender Studies, SOAS, University of London (2015-2016), a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology at Tel Aviv University (2016-2017), and a postdoctoral fellowship Ph.D. at the Humphrey Institute for Social Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2018-2020).
Dr. Maha Karbahi’s areas of interest focus on the connection between social change, family behavior, and gender inequality in societies in the process of change and specifically in Palestinian Arab society in Israel. Her research draws attention to the study of family life and employment, using a combined “ethnic lens” and “gender lens” and paying attention to the perspective of Palestinian Arab women, a group characterized by intersections between multiple marginal locations, which over the years has remained hidden from the research eye. Dr. Karkabi-Sabah’s research is published in professional journals and chapters in scientific books that are considered pioneers in family research, work, and gender equality.

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Prof. Frances Raday

Professor Emeritus in the Lieberman Chair in Labor Law, in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University and serves as a full professor in the College of Management’s academic track, where she also serves as chair of the graduate program and as honorary president of the Concord Center for International Law Absorption. Radai was a member of a working group of the UN Human Rights Council on discrimination against women. In addition, she is a prominent and feminist human rights activist.

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Dr. Rawia Aburabia 

Faculty member of Sapir Academic College’s School of Law, received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research deals with the interface between law, gender, minorities, and human rights. Has published in leading journals on the subject of the matrimonial laws pertaining to Muslim women in Israel. Her book Under the Law, Outside Justice: Polygamy, Gendered Citizenship, and Colonialism in Israeli Law is expected to be published as part of the Gender Series of Kibbutz Meuhad Publishing House.

Dr. Aburabia has extensive experience in international human rights and public law. She has worked as a jurist for the Association for Civil Right and has been invited as a specialist to address such international forums as the United Nations and the European Parliament on the subject of indigenous communities and minority rights. She has interned with Human Rights Watch in Washington DC, and has been a member of the executive board of Amnesty International. In 2018, she was selected by the magazine Globes as one of the 40 most promising young persons in Israel under the age of 40.

 

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Ron Kessler

With over two decades of experience in the field of digital content, Ron has participated in numerous political and social campaigns. He helped run the digital activity of senior public officials, and worked in various NGOs. Ron is a fundamentally optimistic man, who believes that Israel can be changed and so can people. Lives in Tel Aviv.