HR groups: Israel’s far-right Channel 14 called for genocide against Palestinians in Gaza over 50 times

IDF soldiers in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza in February 2024

Ido David Cohen reports in Haaretz on 24 September 2024:

Since the start of the war, Israel’s Channel 14 has given a platform to more than 50 statements calling for genocide or supporting genocide against the Palestinians, and to more than 150 statements calling for the commission of war crimes and of crimes against humanity (or supporting the commission of such crimes).

Dozens more statements included calls for the mass expulsion of the population in Gaza and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. In addition, dozens of statements of racist incitement against Gazans and Palestinians have also been documented. These figures were compiled by three organizations – Zulat for Equality and Human Rights, Hatzlacha: Movement for the Promotion of a Fair Society, and the Democratic Bloc.

In letters sent Monday morning to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and to the Ombudsman of the Second Broadcasting Authority, these organizations call for a criminal investigation to be opened against the Channel 14, arguing that it is responsible for systematic and widespread incitement for the commission of these offenses. They also call for sanctions and serious fines to be levied against the channel for violating the rules of ethics in its broadcasts.

“On October 7, the terrorist organization Hamas committed war crimes and crimes against humanity… The systematic slaughter of civilians, of children, women, the elderly, and men, the abduction of civilians, the sexual violence and abuse of people and of corpses, enveloped Israeli society in massive grief, deep sorrow and burning and understandable fury,” wrote attorneys Michael Sfard, Alon Sapir and Einat Gaier, who are representing the organizations.  “Israeli society is deeply traumatized, and this trauma will take years to heal. This is exactly the type of ground upon which moral monstrosities are liable to flourish, and are flourishing,” they wrote.

Appended to the letters is a list that the organizations contend demonstrates how Channel 14 became a “lobbying machine” for the commission of war crimes against Gazans and often against Palestinians in the West Bank, too. The list includes quotes from presenters, panelists and guests on the channel.

On October 12, during an appearance on “The Patriots” program, former MK Moshe Feiglin said: “if the goal of this operation isn’t destruction, occupation, expulsion and settlement, then we’ve done nothing.”

Two days later, presenter Nava Dromi said on “The Patriots” that “there are no innocents… In 1948, they brought the Nakba on themselves. Now they’ll have a second Nakba, but for real, to finish the job for [David] Ben-Gurion.”

The next day, October 15, the channel aired a filmed message from Israeli singer Eyal Golan in which he urged that “Gaza should be totally wiped out, not one person should be left there.” This statement was quoted in South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel in the Internation Court of Justice. An Israeli criminal investigation into Golan for incitement was considered.

On October 19, “The Patriots” hosted Eliahu Yossian, who said: “The enemy is not Hamas, it’s Gaza. The enemy is not Fatah, it’s the Arabs of Judea and Samaria… When you say ‘population’ – there’s no population. [In Gaza] there are two and a half million terrorists… If there are no innocents in Gaza, then there is no reason for the ‘knock on the roof.’ In the first 10 hours of the war – as soon as we saw how they had raped and beheaded and slaughtered and everything else they did – we should have taken out 50,000 Gazans.”  In another appearance in February, Yossian repeated his claim that in Gaza there are “two and a half million terrorists.”

On November 2, Jacob Bardugo appeared on the Channel 14 news program and said, “We need to bombard them indiscriminately. We’re doing it discriminately, and that’s not a good thing… The air force could be working a lot more and discriminating between combatants and noncombatants.”

That same day, there was a discussion on “The Patriots” about the rules of engagement in combat areas where civilians are located. Panelist Eldad Yaniv said that when you spot civilians, you need to open fire. The host Yinon Magal asked, “Shoot at civilians?” And Yaniv replied, “Certainly! They are not civilians.” The studio audience applauded these remarks.

On November 26, panelist Itamar Fleischman said on “The Patriots”: “Victory will only happen here on one condition. On condition that the Jews destroy the antisemitic rats that did these things… It needs to be total destruction. Without being fearful of words like ‘humanitarian disaster’… to just exterminate them.”

On February 21, several weeks after the International Court of Justice in the Hague issued an interim ruling regarding Israel’s duty to prevent genocide, Shimon Riklin said on the air: “Moshe Cohen-Eliyahu [a law professor and Channel 14 panelist] warned me before the broadcast that if I say these things on the show I could be sued in the Hague, but I want you all to know that since October 7, one of the things that helps me to sleep is when I see all kinds of buildings flying through the air in Gaza, I enjoy it. Let’s have more! Destroy as much as possible, so they won’t have anywhere to go back to. Hang on a second, The Hague is calling… Hello?”

That same day, Itamar Fleischman said on the air: “The more humane solution is to starve them. And the choice is up to the civilians there. You want to keep starving? Keep supporting Hamas… That’s why in my view, the Israeli interest is starvation in Gaza and a humanitarian disaster in Gaza.”

On March 10, during a discussion on “The Patriots,” Professor Cohen-Eliahu said that Israeli singers and soldiers shouldn’t be singing “Let your village burn,” because it hurts Israel in the international legal proceedings against it. Itamar Fleischman responded, to applause from the studio audience: “We’re burning their village, and it’s good that we’re burning it!”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Channel 14 interview, June.Credit: Screenshot from Channel 14
The guest on the program, singer Kobi Peretz added: “All the soldiers think the same as me… We’re not just burning down their village, we’re wiping out their village, and we need to burn the village.”

Similar things are being said more recently, too. On an August 3 program, Yinon Magal read a social media post from a reservist named Dvir Lugar: “The destruction in Gaza gives me a good feeling. Gaza is in a state of devastation. The devastation machine needs to keep working.”

The letters from the three organizations also say that similar things have been written on social media by people from the network, such as Shimon Riklin’s October 17 post on X: “Tell me – What do we have an atomic bomb for?”

The full list, which tracks the social media posts of the channel’s various presenters, cites 380 problematic statements. At the end of their letters, the organizations’ lawyers say they will wait 30 days for the attorney general and the Second Broadcasting Authority to respond before recommending that legal measures be considered.

Channel 14’s referring to Gazan civilians as terrorists is not only seen on its broadcasts and personal social media posts by its presenters, but also, for example, in the way the channel’s website and app for several months of the war presented an updating statistic of “the number of terrorists we’ve eliminated” – with the number displayed being the total number of Palestinians killed according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.

The president of Zulat for Equality and Human Rights, former Meretz leader and MK Zahava Galon: “Incitement to war crimes is part of the Channel 14 poison machine, and its aim is to create a forever war here. This is a channel that enjoys regulatory benefits from the state and serves the political and diplomatic interests of Prime Minister Netanyahu. It also incites against the LGBTQ community, against the families of hostages, against the justice system and against the senior commanders in the army.”

Last month, the High Court of Justice held a hearing on a petition submitted last year by Zulat and Hatzlaha against the Second Broadcasting Authority for not imposing sanctions on Channel 14 for false news reports, incitement and extensive advertising content. Justices Noam Sohlberg, David Mintz and Ofer Grosskopf advised the petitioners to withdraw the petition as they were not convinced by the claims against the Second Broadcasting Authority, and the petition was subsequently removed.

After being approached for a comment, the Second Broadcasting Authority stated that the letter was received and will be examined.

Channel 14 did not respond to a request for comment.

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