Robert Besser - is a news editor who has worked in television and newspapers in the United States, Asia and the Middle East.
Israel has not changed, it remains true to its eternal Jewish values. But the world has certainly changed, and no where more than as we watch the self-destruction of the woke international news media.
Clearly, as the people of the United States display common sense and tune out the mainstream news organizations after discovering their years of lying, cheating and religious devotion to a woke religion, so we in Israel also need to act to minimize the harm intentionally caused to Israel and the Jewish people by the foreign press.
In fact, it is the major press organizations, not we, who have declared war on the values of the free press and, indeed, western civilization.
In response, the Trump White House is now rewriting the rules for how to deliver news to the public, as they bypass the increasingly irrelevant mainstream news media.
Simply put, the White House has announced that they no longer need the traditional media to deliver Trump’s messages to the world, along with the media’s woke outlook, daily omissions of facts and outright lying.
And Israel should follow Trump’s lead and learn how to transmit its messages about our just cause without depending on large foreign media organizations running our news through their anti-Israel filters.
And how should Israel do this?
Believe it or not, by providing even greater access for the friendly media to Israel’s top decision makers, particularly the Prime Minister.
But we need to do it on our own terms, with Israel selecting which news organizations to let in the door.
Additionally, those media organizations that have shown they have an anti-Israel culture embedded in their newsrooms must not be allowed into the offices of Israel’s leaders to cover breaking news, to seek out quotations or obtain background information on important news stories.
Yes, we are talking about locking out the New York Times, the BBC, the Associated Press, ABC, CBS, NBC and many more.
Just because Israel celebrates its domestic free press does not mean it has to lie down and die by allowing our foreign media enemies to lie, to cheat and to libel us, while operating inside our own country.
Would such restrictions limiting their access in Israel be unfair to the foreign press? You bet they would be unfair.
At the same time, Israel must offer access to those news organizations that have been both friendly to Israel and shown that they continue to embrace what we naively call journalistic ethics.
Critically, Israel must continue to deliver its messages to the world through social media, online streaming television, podcasts, Facebook, Instagram, X and in many other ways.
Again, let’s get beyond freshman year civics class and quickly acknowledge that locking out some of the most hateful news organizations is appropriate, even if it is not fair to them.
In fact, let us celebrate being unfair. Let us embrace acting in our own defense. Let us acknowledge that we do not have to hand to the media that hates Israel the weapons to destroy us.
At long last, let us proudly state that our believing in a free press does not mean we must commit suicide-by-media.
And when the foreign press screams about their “rights” being limited in Israel, let us very loudly ask them, when did they last write anything critical about their host country from newsrooms located within even one Arab state, or China, Cuba or North Korea? Why is it that the only Middle Eastern country that is daily pummeled by the press is the Jewish state?
We remember when CBS News’ Bob Simon, reporting on the flight of the age-old Christian community from Palestinian Arab-controlled Bethlehem, reported to America that the reason the Christians were fleeing was not the recorded Arab bigotry from which they suffered, but the inconvenience caused by Israeli roadblocks. And we recall how the New York Times chief dance critic managed to libel Israel in a review of the Batsheva junior dance troupe, the Young Ensemble.
In that New York Times hit-piece, woke protesters outside the dance performance at a Manhattan theatre were described as “human rights protestors,” not anti-Israel protesters. And the reporter, one more New York Times flunky, reported as fact the canard that the focus of the street protestors was “Israel’s repression of the Palestinian people and Batsheva’s role as an Israeli cultural ambassador, as a front for that repression.”
Note how proudly the writer avoided using the word “alleged” when the Jews are accused. How selectively the New York Times drops their own perverted standards, since in his own woke newsroom this reporter would have been fired had he not written “alleged” about the hundreds of Negro and Hispanic criminals arrested that very night in New York.
Even as we acknowledge that the foreign media has their right to report about Israel as they wish….so do we have the right to run our country as we see fit.
When Israel has important news to announce, let the Prime Minister invite friendly media into his office to report his pronouncements. But critically, leave the unfriendly media out on the sidewalk.
Through our actions, let us no longer allow access to news media that endlessly uses every news story to impale Israel.
Let us announce that we will no longer allow access to news media that libels Israelis as white settlers, rather than the 3,500-year indigenous inhabitants of our land.
Let us announce that we will no longer allow access to news media that whitewashes terrorists by calling them “militants”, that daily libels all right-of-center Israelis, and that questions our legitimate rights to an undivided Jerusalem.
Let us deny access to the media enemy that denies the Jews’ right to our own national liberation movement. Let us deny access to the media enemy that enthusiastically amplifies Hamas propaganda. Let us deny access to the media enemy that seeks our national death.
Yet, let us continue to be among only a handful of countries in the world with a free domestic press, while at the same time ending all cooperation with those foreign news organizations that have declared Israel and the Jews to be their enemies.
For the sake of our future generations, let us ensure that Israel is victorious against our enemies on the actual battlefield, as well as victorious over those journalist-enemies on the media battlefield.
Let us restrict Israel’s foreign media enemies and regain our sovereignty.
For just as Israel must be forever vigilant to protect our citizens from Arabs seeking to kill us, so must we stop providing assistance to a foreign media enemy that similarly seeks our national death.