Photo credit: ACRI
In late January, the day after Trump was inaugurated, NIF’s flagship grantee The Association for Civil Rights and Israel’s premier newspaper Haaretz jointly hosted a 200-person conference on freedom of expression in Israel. They called it “We Won’t Shut Up.”
The conference was a response to the onslaught of legislation coming out of Netanyahu’s government that amounts to nothing less than a well-crafted masterplan to undermine press freedom and discredit independent media. You can read about these bills—to shutter Israel’s public broadcaster, ban foreign media outlets, and give the government power over television ratings—at length on NIF’s latest What to Watch in the Knesset page.
Part of the strategy of these bills (which come straight out of the playbooks of Vladimir Putin, Reccep Erdoğan, and Viktor Orbán) is that they need not even pass; the harm they cause as trial balloons is enough. Raviv Drucker, one of Israel’s top journalists, said as much himself at the ACRI conference. “The issue of the suffering in Gaza is undoubtedly massively underreported,” he said in a conversation with Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn. “This isn’t because of a phone call from [IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Daniel] Hagari, or a call from [Communications Minister Shlomo] Karhi, or from Bibi. It’s… internal feelings—you simply can’t bring this up, either because others won’t accept it, viewers won’t accept it, or the people sitting next to you won’t accept it.” This chilling effect, in the form of difficult-to-quantify self-censorship, hovers in the atmosphere among members of the Israeli media.
One highlight of the evening was the speech by ACRI’s Deputy Director and Head of the Legal Department, Gadeer Nicola. She described how the press, and freedom of expression broadly, function as the canary in the coal mine for all other democratic norms. Below is an excerpt of her remarks:
Once we permit and accept restricting another’s freedom of expression, the restriction will spread and reach each and every one of us. Those in power won’t give up on attaining more and more power and will expand the attack against any source expressing opposition, even against those who sit and watch what’s happening in silence…
During this period, a series of bills are being actively promoted, aimed at imposing a policy of silencing and persecution in Israel’s higher education institutions, not just against students but also against professors. Against all these proposals and others, the Association for Civil Rights has fought in the Knesset and courts to protect all our rights as citizens and human beings…
Because of this simple truth: the true test of any regime claiming to be democratic is the status of the minority within it, and the true protection of freedom of expression begins with protecting the narrative of the other. When the wind of fascism breathes down your neck, you don’t bow your head hoping it will pass, you don’t “sell out” parts of the public hoping it will satisfy the incitement machine. You fight fascism face to face, with the full truth, and without bending and compromising your principles. This is what history taught us. Otherwise, the winds of fascism will uproot everything… Finally, it’s important to remember this isn’t a lost battle… And we at the Association for Civil Rights will be partners in this journey. We will lead Jewish-Arab partnerships and work with anyone who holds these values dear—until it’s better here.
We are proud to support ACRI, Haaretz, independent journalism, and stand with those in Israel working to preserve Israelis and Palestinians’ freedom of expression.
[The conversation between Raviv Drucker and Aluf Benn was first reported by one of Israel’s only media watchdog outfits, NIF grantee, The Seventh Eye.]