1
Don't let them take you for a ride. The basic assumption underlying the big lie reported on Monday as "investigative journalism" is that no reasonable person could possibly vote for Likud or the Right. For some parts of the Israeli Left, the other side doesn't have people with independent, well-thought-out worldviews, but rather slaves, or in the words of the report: "bots." In other words, robots operated by others.
In 1988, the Likud under Yitzhak Shamir won the election. The next day, Shelly Yachimovich, then a broadcaster for Israel Radio, interviewed a mayor from one of the towns in southern Israel. The (Labor) Alignment, she said, invested so much money in them – why had they voted for the Likud? There was a long silence, after which the interviewee spat out, "Ma'am, we have a worldview of our own." Tell that to the bots.
2
Take note of how crazy things have become. Yedioth Ahronoth launched a false "probe," whose claims were disproved early the next morning. One after the other, everyone behind an account labeled "fake" identified themselves. Let us bless the revival of the bots. And still, mainstream media outlets continue to pump the false report. What was it complaining about, a network of pro-Likud social media accounts? Without even bothering to hide it, most of the media outlets and dozens of senior journalists who support the other side are repeating the joke as legitimate news. What's worse? Anyone who does that has no moral authority to criticize the other side.
Back in the early days of the Internet, when newspaper readers discovered the wonders of commenting on items, they started to lay into writers, the vast majority of whom were leftist journalists who until then had been able to publish their opinions without any serious opposition. All of a sudden they were exposed to direct criticism. Even then, there was talk of "bots," mostly on the Right. They didn't understand that while most of the media was giving voice to mostly left-wing positions, the comments served as the last bastion of defense against a yearslong attack against a way of thinking.
As part of the onslaught against our consciousness, we were sold the Oslo Accords as a vision for world peace. The critics of the deal were publicly denounced as looking to stir up fights and the settlement pioneers on the hilltops ("settlers") were presented as the enemies of peace. This same attack on our consciousness also marketed the expulsion of the settlers from Gush Katif in 2005 as a move that would bolster Israel's security. Honest farmers in Gush Katif who had suffered under mortar fire for years were presented as putting Israel's future at risk. Who could have grappled with such immense propaganda, which was presented as news? Social media fixes that wrongdoing to some extent.
3
The relations between social media and mainstream journalism reminded me on Monday of Fritz Lang's outstanding 1927 film "Metropolis." In the dystopia Lang created, a city has two classes, one of which lives underground and the other – the ruling race – lives above them. Social media is the masses' revenge on mainstream journalism; it allows the masses to fight back against a small group of people who see themselves as smart and who grabbed the public microphones (as well as Israeli academia and the courts) to promote a political and cultural agenda that is contrary to what most of the public wants. Even worse, many members of that same group see the general public as ignoramuses who are manipulated by shrewd politicians whom they are obligated to enlighten and move to the "right" camp. Israeli society does not need supervisors; every Israeli understands politics and culture at least as well as the wise ones they see on the screen, if not more.
4
This is not the first election campaign in which ideas and ideology are not discussed. But in the past decade, only Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been the focus of criticism from the opposition – he and his family. Not ideology, not economics, not diplomacy. Only him, personally, and the scandals involving him. Back then, we never heard complaints about the discourse falling apart. Now we are expected to buy the embarrassing spin about serious debate being lost? In my years at this newspaper, I've published almost 1,200 in-depth articles on dozens of topics. Most of them argued with what speakers from the other camp said. No one from their side ever stepped up to debate me seriously. There was only slander, as if I didn't know how to think independently (a bot). So if it's been that way for years, don't complain about the current election reflecting that. The media establishment bears most of the responsibility for it. For that, you don't need bots.
