Rumor has it Netanyahu owns i24 News: Is it the disinformation or is there something to it?
ALBAWABA – Rumor has it that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu owns i24 News, the besmeared Israeli television channel, which reported disinformation on the casualties of the surprise Gaza attack and the Baptist hospital bombing in the besieged enclave.
The fact is, Netanyahu and i24 News share an intimate, symbiotic relationship that is questionable, to say the least, but he does not own the channel.
Rumour has it Netanyahu owns i24 News - Not Literally
For years, the Israeli PM and i24 News have scratched each other’s backs.
That is why rumor has it that Netanyahu owns i24 News, but it is not exactly the case. Though, politically speaking, it is not so far from the truth.
In 2019, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on a bit of scandal regarding the international i24News television channel, the Israeli answer to Al Jazeera.
According to Haaretz, i24’s viewership was declining, so they decided to go populist and side with Netanyahu.
“Leftist” guests and programs were blacklisted and cancelled, and criticism of the Israeli PM was suddenly muted. The channel even provided Netanyahu with the platform he needed to widen his base.
“It’s not even a propaganda channel for Israel,” said one former channel executive. “It’s a pro-Bibi channel”, the newspaper quoted him as saying.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his spouse Sara Netanyahu next to him speaking at the end of the election day on March 17, 2015 - Shutterstock
In short, i24 News turned pro-Netanyahu to secure a license to broadcast in English on Israeli television and to establish a local broadcast in Hebrew, in order to expand the channel’s viewership.
Since then, despite there being some criticism of Netanyahu, mostly in favour of more populist right-wing narratives, the channel has been a stout proponent of Netanyahu through and through.
The channel reportedly functions as a proxy for the Netanyahu family, according to Haaretz.
All of this came after a spat between the owner of i24 News, French-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, and Netanyahu, over how AlJazeera is allowed to air in Israeli-occupied territories while i24 News is blocked.
Apparently, according to Haaretz, they came up with a solution that would allow the channel to broadcast locally and ensure favourable coverage of the Israeli PM and his governments.
Notably, Drahi’s multinational business empire Altice is in the grip of a corruption scandal in Portugal, The Times of Israel reported today, Thursday.
While Media Bias reports i24 News’ credibility as mixed and least biased, their website showed the TV channel aired at least two false reports and two misleading ones by the end of 2022.
Disinformation on the genocide in Gaza reinforced rumors that Netanyahu owns i24 News
The latest favour i24 News did for Netanyahu was just earlier this week, when the channel reported that it was a misfired Hamas rocket that destroyed the Baptist hospital in Gaza Tuesday, not an Israeli missile.
Hundreds of patients were killed, most of whom were women and children, as Israeli bullhorns took to social media to spread i24’s version of the story.
Also earlier this week, i24 News falsely reported that gunmen from the Palestinian resistance group Hamas burnt and beheaded Israeli children during the surprise Gaza attack on Saturday.
Of course, both claims by i24 News were rebuked as officials recanted the beheaded babies’ story and the reporter confirmed that she did not see any of the children’s bodies herself.
In fact, the soldier who told the i24 News reported about the supposed babies was an Israeli settler leader who incited riots to ‘wipe out’ Palestinian village, according to the American far-left blog and website, the Grayzone.
As for the Hamas rocket razing the Baptist Hospital in Gaza to the ground, footage from the vicinity of bombing reaffirmed that it was hit by a missile, rather than a rocket. And fact-checkers online said it was a US-made missile.
Meanwhile, various news agencies including AlJazeera reported that Israeli occupation authorities did in fact issue warnings to the hospital in question, as well as five others in Gaza, claiming they were being used as bases and launch pads for Hamas’ rockets
Typically, this is the occupation forces’ approach to tipping residents and citizens of a building to evacuate before it is by an Israeli airstrike.
Yet, Israeli officials claim they did not bomb the hospital, despite there being ample precedence of Israeli airstrikes targeting civilian hospitals in Gaza over the years.
Seeding doubt in the Palestinian claim that it was in fact an Israeli armament that destroyed the hospital, i24 News quickly reported unsubstantiated disinformation about the massacre, blaming Hamas. All to support Netanyahu’s self-proclaimed war of retribution against the Palestinians in the besieged enclave, whom he blames for harbouring Hamas fighters, in order to justify the genocide in Gaza, and ride the tidal wave of controversial popular support for viewership and profit.
Another Haaretz report in August 2019, pointed to how Israeli media has become a playground for private broadcasters, who are usually driven by profits rather than the ethics of the profession.
In 2014, the Israeli authorities established the Kan public broadcaster with an annual budget of $185.5 million shekels, in an attempt to fix the failure of commercial broadcasting, with a focus on investigative journalism and news content. Adjusted for inflation, that is equivalent to $241.17 million in 2023. Yet, Kan today broadcasts mainly entertainment and cultural programs rather than news and investigative content and has therefore not met expectations, according to Haaretz.
