Israel General Discussion: The Return of the Rotation Government

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Why does Bibi care about Communications so much?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Why does Bibi care about Communications so much?

The media market in Israel is very small since the collapse of partisan newspapers in the 80's and 90's, Bibi and the Right feels the media is controlled by the left or something like the "liberal media". Which, even if it was a correct statement 20 years ago (big if), is clearly false this days.

Bibi felt his fall in 99 had a lot to do with the entire media standing against him and since his rise to power in 2009 is trying to push a right wing populist (and dumbed down) outlets like Edelson's paper and channel 20.

honestly, his crusade went beyond rational and has probably a lot to do with his wife sensitivities with media criticism

How much of Bibi's worries here about losing the media are rooted in unjustified paranoia and how much is rooted in actual risk?
Does he fear that the possibility of the media going full-on nuking his image over indictment is a risk so grave he needs to do the most he can to avert it?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Why does Bibi care about Communications so much?

The media market in Israel is very small since the collapse of partisan newspapers in the 80's and 90's, Bibi and the Right feels the media is controlled by the left or something like the "liberal media". Which, even if it was a correct statement 20 years ago (big if), is clearly false this days.

Bibi felt his fall in 99 had a lot to do with the entire media standing against him and since his rise to power in 2009 is trying to push a right wing populist (and dumbed down) outlets like Edelson's paper and channel 20.

honestly, his crusade went beyond rational and has probably a lot to do with his wife sensitivities with media criticism

How much of Bibi's worries here about losing the media are rooted in unjustified paranoia and how much is rooted in actual risk?
Does he fear that the possibility of the media going full-on nuking his image over indictment is a risk so grave he needs to do the most he can to avert it?

we are ex post here, the media already went nuclear and has been critical for years (though less then in the past), and behold his voters don't really care. hence there's nothing here over and above his personal desire to be framed as one of the greatest, some childish want of acknowledgement. I assume he never thought that perhaps is overt emphasis on media pictures and spins is the reason the media dislikes him.

Is that so?
I guess I thought too much of the guy.
I never knew about this side of Bibi.
Was he always like this, post-1999?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Thanks for your insight. I'm sorry if I came across as implying Russian Jews were all criminals. There's now a sizeable amount of organised criminals who are non-Russian too, some of whom have infiltrated the Likud. I am starting to realise though why YB broke away so easily from the Hasidic parties.

Could you link the Shas ad? It seems almost surreal, but then Shaked's ad did too

No worries, it's just that there's a lot of stereotyping in Israel so I had to clear that up a bit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5wCALTOhCU

Holy sh**t, it's worse than I remembered. The woman's accent is really extreme, she speaks half in Russian as if Russians can't speak normal Hebrew, and the guy exclaims "you're not a Jew?!" in the end.

Also includes the hypocricy in the smug treatment some mizrahi Jews give Russians: the sentence "keeping the Jewish tradition" in that ad, while playing an Arab song. Treating us and our heritage as alien and non-Jewish while keeping their heritage, which also has some parts that are decidedly non-Jewish. Not that I have a problem with this.

three things.
1, the russian accent is so thick I could notice it and I don't even know any Hebrew besides Shalom. I guess they really wanted to go all the way with the ridicolousness.
2, look at the like-dislike ratio. 306 likes, 1,957 dislikes. Ouch.
3, all this really gives me the vibe Shas are a nasty party, even by the standards of Isreali politics.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

3, all this really gives me the vibe Shas are a nasty party, even by the standards of Isreali politics.

They're just basically a cult. I worked in a polling place in the April election, and one woman who came from another city came looking for a polling place where you could vote as an absentee. She was distressed because "it's a sacred obligation to vote Shas". They use their dead Rabbie, Ovadia Yossef, who was really popular, in all their ads, telling voters that he's "looking from above" and that they have to vote Shas for him. They also sold charms against covid-19 last time and other "blessings" every election. Not to mention the fact that their leader served a jail sentence for corruption and is now due to be indicted again.

I'm laughing at the the irony that they attack Russians for mafia stuff while they are basically THE mafia in Isreali politics, due to their exceptional corruption. Is that bad?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Oh I meant that Shas was the personification of corruption in Isreali politics, evenmoreso than Bibi. They have been basically in 95% of the governments (dunno the exact figure, so treat the 95% here as a figure of speech), and have done an exceptionally skillful job at enriching themselves.
And that is mafia-like.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What would be needed to clean up Isreali politics?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

3, all this really gives me the vibe Shas are a nasty party, even by the standards of Isreali politics.

They're just basically a cult. I worked in a polling place in the April election, and one woman who came from another city came looking for a polling place where you could vote as an absentee. She was distressed because "it's a sacred obligation to vote Shas". They use their dead Rabbie, Ovadia Yossef, who was really popular, in all their ads, telling voters that he's "looking from above" and that they have to vote Shas for him. They also sold charms against covid-19 last time and other "blessings" every election. Not to mention the fact that their leader served a jail sentence for corruption and is now due to be indicted again.

I'm laughing at the the irony that they attack Russians for mafia stuff while they are basically THE mafia in Isreali politics, due to their exceptional corruption. Is that bad?

Well, they have no organzied or violent crime connections that I know of. Generally, mafia stuff isn't really an issue in Israeli politics (save pershaps for instances like the witnesses in Lieberman's trial, um, disappearing). But I think it's an accurate assessment that both Shas and YB represent the bad sides of their sects and not the good (sadly, I think this can be said for a lot of sectarial parties- the Haredim, the religious zionists, even the Arabs to an extent).

There's some pretty serious allegations in Misha Glenny's book McMafia (which led to be interested in how Russian Jews are perceived) that Likud was infiltrated by organised crime.

After Dubai, Israel is the next money laundering capital of the Middle East...

Seems like a sensationalist claim to me (as well every organized crime allegation ever). Considering Income Tax Authority in Israel is pretty tough and strong.

Organized crime in Israel is very low scale and very low-fi. Likudniks definitely have some ties to criminals, but they're petty criminals.

Part for holding houses in Israel, Russian mobsters don't seem to be money laundering here in a large scale

Don't Russians tend to prefer Cyprus as a money store, as opposed to Isreal?