The New Censorship

The 2023-2025 Israel-Hamas war caught the Israeli media in the midst of another battle – the battle over its future. After years of media bashing, smear campaigns, legal warfare and hostile regulation, journalists and newsrooms arrived at this battle intimidated, exhausted, and publicly hated. And thus, while the horrors in the Gaza Strip have gone viral on social media, filling the global news with dreadful footage of death, hunger, and destruction – on Israeli TV, it was a very different war. After a decade of research into Benjamin Netanyahu’s attack on journalism, I came to believe it would be impossible to understand public opinion in Israel without uncovering the significant changes to the Israeli media environment over the past two decades. 

The New Censorship focuses on the unfortunate and unexpected mechanisms through which the media has inadvertently amplified the anti-democratic movement that looms over our societies. Netanyahu’s anti-media populism, which preceded and inspired many of his global counterparts, serves as the main case study. Instead of banning stories, they spread flows of disinformation, which take hours and days to debunk. Instead of silencing, they shout louder. Instead of blue-pencilling, they employ fake users, bots, and outrageous smear campaigns to dominate the conversation. Based on empirical research, personal experience, and a decade of living under populism in power, the book examines how we got here, but also lays out what we all could (and should) do to restart the conversation and protect our right to know – in Israel, Palestine, and beyond.