How the attack on Arab journalists is central to Netanyahu’s strategy

Israeli television journalist Lucy Aharish

Noa Landau writes in Haaretz on 24 February 2026:

This week’s violent attack on Lucy Aharish, a journalist for Channel 13 television, was addressed particularly leniently by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s police. The two thugs, Mordechai David and Rami Ben-Yehuda, were detained and released a few hours later after having gone all the way to her home’s doorstep, because she, indeed, is an Arab. That was the great cause.

Unusually, there was a bit of an outcry from the public this time. That was mainly thanks to the blistering response by her husband, actor Tsahi Halevi, which went viral.

An attack on Suleiman Maswadeh, a journalist from the public broadcasting corporation, didn’t spark an equally vehement response. Granted, this one didn’t rise to the same level of violence, but it was ugly and untruthful, and it was all because he is an Arab. That’s all.

The thugs don’t pretty this up, and there is no reason to do so in their stead. This was an overtly racist attack. They are the clearest link connecting nation and nationalism, and do so in the simplest fashion.

Meanwhile, attacks are continuing on other journalists who, admittedly, are Jewish, but have been marked as opponents of the government. Guy Peleg, Raviv Drucker and Aviad Glickman have encountered this up close and personal for years, in a very public manner. But there are many others, including Haaretz journalists, who are experiencing escalating harassment, both online and in real life, under cover of a tailwind from the government.

Take, for instance, the head of the workers’ union at Channel 13’s news company, economic analyst Matan Hodorov. He is currently the target of an organized smear campaign whose goal is to prevent the employees from fighting the channel’s planned sale to businessman Patrick Drahi.

The sale is part of the never-ending campaign to stamp out pockets of resistance against the government at Channel 13 and in the media in general. That includes Haaretz, which the government has been targeting both through legislation and by trying to prevent the paper’s distribution to public sector workers.

The thugs on the front lines who attack Aharish, Maswadeh and many others through in-person harassment meant to intimidate and silence them are not acting in a vacuum. They are part of a system that seeks to destroy Israel’s independent media. Some are hoodlums, while others wear ties, but their goal is the same – a media without journalists that mobilizes to support a government in which racism is an essential element.

Racism is essential to the survival of this antidemocratic government not only with regard to the substance of its policies, but also from a strictly technical standpoint. To win the next election, the bloc headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must continue striving to delegitimize political and public (and journalistic) participation by Israel’s Arab citizens, and prevent them from seeking to participate in the political and public game. It does this through a campaign of threats and intimidation.

Racism isn’t a side effect, but a crucial tool meant to shore up Netanyahu’s government. It’s no wonder that his opponents, who sometimes also adopt this rhetoric, largely serve as his useful idiots.

Similarly, when Channel 12 television’s news magazine broadcasts a “project” exploring how young people plan to vote that doesn’t include a single Arab in the group, or conducts apartheid polls that don’t include any Arab respondents, it is serving the same goal. It’s true that this is less violent, less viral and less interesting to most of the public. But it’s no less racist and destructive.

Anyone who makes 20 percent of the population vanish from our screens and from our conversation is effectively agreeing with the racist assertion that Arabs have no place as citizens of this country, and therefore, no place in the elections.

The most effective response to such displays of racism involves not only publicly supporting journalists under personal attack, though that is necessary and important, but also opposing the widespread, deep-rooted racism in the political center and among Netanyahu’s opponents.

If the democratic bloc wants to live, it must stop cooperating with the delegitimization of Arab citizens, even in the ostensibly “soft” form of excluding and ignoring them.

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