Israel Hayom, Sheldon Adelson and Israel Hayom editor-in-chief Amos Regev on Sunday responded to a petition by attorney Shahar Ben-Meir calling for the issuing of an injunction against the continued publication of the newspaper on the grounds that it allegedly constitutes prohibited campaign propaganda. In its response to the petition, submitted by attorneys Dori Klegsbeld, Amir Shraga and Don Susanov, Israel Hayom made its position clear: Even if the paper's editorial stance does not agree with that of Ben-Meir, it has no intention of changing it. This is the essence of freedom of speech in a democratic country -- not a single, unified voice, as certain members of the Israeli media want -- but rather a variety of voices, and Israel Hayom is one of these. The response presents remarks by Supreme Court Justice (ret.) Dalia Dorner, who said, "It's very good that there is someone defending the prime minister, and of course someone who is attacking him.
The main thing is that here we don't speak with a single voice, and it's good that there is a newspaper like Israel Hayom, as a contrast to Yedioth [Ahronoth]. "Israel Hayom does not publish prohibited campaign propaganda, but expresses the worldview of a considerable part of the Israeli public. Anyone who wants to read slander against the Likud party and the prime minister is free to read Yedioth Ahronoth. Anyone who wants a different worldview, a more balanced one, is free to read Israel Hayom." The paper's response to the petition said that Ben-Meir's claims against Israel Hayom were baseless. While his arguments were phrased in aggressive language, most of them were based on an "investigation" conducted by journalist Raviv Drucker and broadcast on Channel 10. After the broadcast, Drucker admitted in an interview to TheMarker financial paper that he had not managed to find a sufficient basis for the claims on which his investigation was based, that there were alleged ties between the Prime Minister's Office and Israel Hayom. As the Israel Hayom response explained, no such ties exist. State Comptroller Yosef Shapira, who was contacted by officials from the political arena, ruled that he had been presented with no "evidence that cast doubt on the true journalistic work of the Israel Hayom newspaper." "Israel Hayom is an independent paper, whose writing reflects the position of its publisher, its editors, and reporters, as is the norm in free media in a democratic state, even if these views do not match those of the people behind the petition," Shapira said. The Likud party also responded to the petition against Israel Hayom, which was initiated by the Zionist Union. Attorney Avi Halevy, speaking on behalf of the party, said, "The factual and evidentiary framework on which the petition is based is a house of cards build on dunes of shifting sand." "The [Likud] movement and the Likud chairman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu do not and have never had any controlling or organizational ties to any organizations, of any kind or description, with Israel Hayom or with any newspaper or any reporters, that could possibly have influenced the editorial considerations of the newspaper or its content or its establishment, founding, or ongoing management," Halevy said. According to Halevy, Ben-Meir was seeking to issue a "draconian injunction that aims to limit the journalistic freedom of a daily newspaper, which has been published for eight years straight.
The news articles and the opinion pieces published in the paper over the years, written by senior editors, are described by the petitioner as prohibited campaign propaganda, merely because he and a few other opinion writers and media figures believe that a description of the Israeli reality includes only one journalistic truth -- their own, of course."
