The emotional response of Israelis to the present sociopolitical crisis is complex and multidimensional. Three manifestations of that response in the artistic and media spheres will be at center of this chapter. The heated struggle over the judicial reform made it necessary for both opponents and supporters of the government to mobilize resources and energy to maximize public visibility, attract media attention, and the transmission of clear, strong, and catchy messages. Acute political struggles invite acrimony rather than nuance, as depicted visually in protest posters featuring raised fists, in processions by women in red robes, known as the “Handmaid’s marches,” and in the sight of large crowds waving or draped in Israeli flags. The acrimony has also manifested rhetorically, particularly in broadcasts by the television channel that became a major player in the media arena – Channel 14.

My flag

JPPI’s Israeli Judaism study identified the flag as a significant element in the outward expression of connection to the state. The majority of Israeli Jews said that they “wave the Israeli flag” on Independence Day (60%). However, certain disparities were evident in rates of Israeli flag use; Israelis who hold “rightist” views, especially those belonging to the Masorti (traditionalist) and Dati (religious but not ultra-Orthodox) identity groups were more likely to say that they wave the Israeli flag. Seventy-five percent of Datiim said they wave the flag, versus half of those who self-defined as “totally secular.” In various contexts, the Israeli flag has been identified with right-wing public displays, such as the traditional Flag Parade on Jerusalem Day; by contrast, in anti-government protests of earlier years, flags other than the Israeli flag have been used (as in the anti-Netanyahu Black Flag protests).

The decision by the organizers of the current anti-government protests to employ the Israeli flag as the main component in its visual branding should be regarded as a political-cultural act of great importance. It essentially constitutes a dual statement on the part of the protesters from both ends of the political spectrum to the opposing camp.

The message being sent by the center and the left to their right-wing counterparts is: “Though we may be protesting the government’s policies, and though most of the demonstrators are people of the center and the left, you can’t accuse or suspect us of a lack of patriotism.” In this sense, the flag is a protective shield against the prevailing view among the right that, on the other side of the political divide, there are Israelis who have a less distinct interest in the existence of Israel as a Jewish-Zionist state (for relevant data from JPPI surveys, see the Israeli Society Index, pp. 83-93). This view has been used in various political campaigns, including the current confrontation, to chastise the center and the left. The flag’s dominant presence cannot dispel this perception, but it unquestionably helped the protesters in muting it somewhat, at least in the earlier stages of the confrontation.

The statement directed to the left is similar, but with a different emphasis: it is a signal to the group setting the boundaries and the tone of the protest movement not to allow the demonstrations to be hijacked for goals outside of those motivating most of the participants. Tensions between factions participating in the demonstrations surfaced on occasion, due mainly to the presence of groups whose primary interest relates to the Israeli government’s occupation in Judea and Samaria, the settlements, and Palestinian rights. These tensions were exemplified by a single violent incident that made the headlines: some protesters from a group calling itself Achim L’Neshek (“Brothers in Arms”) wanted to eject from the center of a demonstration a group of activists who were waving Palestinian flags and anti-settlement signs.¹

This iconography of the flag, and a similar highlighting of the Declaration of Independence, a far less meaningful symbol in the public sphere in recent decades, reflect a trend in Israel over the past year that cannot be ignored. The seemingly deep Israeli polarization might have manifested in a polarized choice of symbols – for and against. But in reality, what has been happening in Israel is not a splitting of symbols but a struggle for symbols agreed upon by all. “Mistakenly or deliberately, during the past few months some appear to have been trying to appropriate Israel’s national symbols – the flag and the Declaration of Independence – for the anti-judicial-reform protests, just as they are trying to appropriate democracy for themselves,” a columnist wrote in the right-wing newspaper Makor Rishon.² That is, not only is the flag no longer the exclusive symbol of the right, to which the center-left responds with black flags, but suddenly there is a the danger of the flag being “owned” by the rival camp – a clearly undesirable development in the eyes of the government’s supporters.

If we try to find a potentially positive aspect of the crisis in this development, we can again look to JPPI survey findings of the past year. One survey found that, among both government supporters and opponents, a significant emotional reaction to the crisis is the sense that it “encourages” citizens to “fight for the Israel’s image.” Thirty-eight percent of the Jewish public chose this answer over other options – a higher percentage than that garnered by any other response (the second-most-chosen option, one that should not go unmentioned and that was especially prevalent among the government’s opponents, was “The crisis is causing me despair over what awaits Israel”). Despair is, of course, a state of mind that can lead to languid resignation, whereas the decision to “fight for Israel’s image” is one that motivates for action.

The waving of the Israeli flag reflects the fact that, although a sizeable segment of the anti-government protesters are willing to relinquish state symbols and to set precedents that undermine the sense of Israeli partnership (relatively high support for “alternative Independence Day ceremonies,” “interrupting government representatives at Yom HaZikaron ceremonies,” as well as the decision by reserve army officers to halt their voluntary service) – there is also an aspiration to use the state symbols to signal that the protesters’ aim is not to dismantle the state, but rather to preserve it and its symbols.

My anxieties

Is the status of Israeli women in peril? Among the government’s supporters, this is a question that has elicited bewilderment. Among the government’s opponents, it is a question that is being answered emphatically in the affirmative. In fact, a central motivation behind the anti-government protest activity is the assumption that the current government and the forces supporting intend to significantly change the status of women in Israel – by reducing their influence, imposing limits on their freedom, curbing their professional and economic advancement, and more.

Those who fear that the status of women will be undermined cite various examples to prove that the government is already working in this direction. For example, it has been noted that even during the coalition-formation negotiations two parties, the Religious Zionist Party and United Torah Judaism, demanded that the possibility of separating men and women at public events be enshrined in law, without it being regarded as discrimination. Prime Minister Yair Lapid hastened to respond: “This isn’t Iran.”

The debate over gender segregation has been going on for many years in Israel, and an attempt to summarize it in terms of two extreme positions – “feminist Israel” versus “Iranian Israel” does injustice to both positions. Regardless of whether one favors or opposes gender separation, the demand by the religious parties, which has also been expressed in government actions (such as the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s effort to designate gender-separate days at nature reserves³) does not require segregation, but rather permits segregation. This is a meaningful difference. In the first instance, the basic assumption is that there will be gender separation at every event. In the second case, the assumption is that separation is allowed; some events will have gender separation without it being considered a violation of law.

The question of whether it is appropriate or inappropriate to permit gender separation at events for populations that want it is a complex one on which people are divided. Some believe that any separation is wrong, as it constitutes prohibited discrimination. Some believe that the option of gender separation shows consideration for populations that hold gender-separate events only. Two values are in conflict here: the value of equality between men and women, for those who think that upholding it entails prohibiting separation; and the value of tolerance, for those who think that upholding it entails permitting separation.

In times of pronounced social tension, however, public discourse does not accommodate nuance. The growing fear among center-left secular (as well as liberal-religious) women that a traditional religious government will act to restrict them sparked one of the protest movement’s most visually striking expressions: the “Handmaids’ marches.” These marches draw their inspiration from the Canadian author Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale and, particularly where the visual dimension is concerned, from its adaptation for television. The book and the series depict a dystopian reality in which women are subjugated by men and have essentially been stripped of their humanity (Atwood herself responded enthusiastically to the Israeli “handmaids”).

At various times, women’s protests around the world have featured dimensions of dress and undress, in response to (male, conservative, religious) modesty demands. Polish women in black garb protested planned legislation that would make abortion difficult or illegal.⁴ Iranian women removed their hijabs to protest the country’s modesty rules, and riots broke out after the death of a young woman while in custody for not wearing the hijab, led to a major violent backlash in which, it is estimated, hundreds of anti-regime protesters were killed.⁵ Liberian women wore white to protest violence.⁶ TikTok was the site of this year’s Burn Bra Challenge against Nike (due to the company’s use of a transgender influencer to advertise a sports bra).⁷ This latter protest of course echoes the 1960s-era feminist protests in the United States and elsewhere, in which women burned bras as a symbol of liberation from male tyranny.

The extensively photographed women-in-red marches did not, of course, go unnoticed. The marches, with their effective visual impact, were applauded by some but interpreted by others as expressions of a baseless anxiety at best, and at worst an attempt to delegitimize the views and lifestyles of other Israelis. Women who counter-protested with provocative signs bearing the slogan “We’re daughters of a king, you’re the slaves” also received widespread coverage. They objected to what they called “this crazy demonization of the right-wing camp, which has been going on for years and decades, as if we – as women – would vote for a party that wants to imprison us. It’s like they’re telling us we can’t think for ourselves. It’s ridiculous.”⁸ “I feel that this crisis is based on fantasies,” said Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, the Chief Rabbi of Safed. The right-wing columnist Irit Linur wrote that only “those who think Haredi women are handmaids and fertility machines – maybe they, like Atwood, would imagine the worst about a society they’re unfamiliar with.”⁹

Anxiety on the one hand, and superficial familiarity on the other; this is the stuff from which dystopian visions are created. The women in red really do believe that if they don’t halt the government’s policy initiative, they will end up like the women of Atwood’s Gilead. Those who look at them from the other side of Israel’s social divide truly believe that the women in red have lost contact with reality.

My channel

Marshall McLuhan’s idea of the medium having a greater impact than the message is well-worn but still relevant to Israel today. McLuhan maintained that seminal historical events are not the births of religions or the emergence of movements such as feminism, but rather revolutions in the dissemination of knowledge: the printing revolution, the invention of the radio, the introduction of television sets into living rooms – and later (after McLuhan’s time), life on the internet. The medium, according to McLuhan, is not merely the vehicle for the message’s transmission, but rather what shapes the message itself. In Israel, amid the social upheaval, a new vehicle of this kind emerged: Channel Now 14.

Channel 14 had been in operation for several years, but gained a new momentum this year. It garnered higher ratings,¹⁰ but even more than that, it entered Israeli discursive space as a phenomenon that could no longer be ignored. Now 14, owned by Jewish Israeli Channel Ltd., is a news and commentary channel associated with the political right, and many of its chief announcers and commentators openly support Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Various government moves were meant to strengthen the channel, financially and in terms of programming. This is the only channel on which the prime minister is interviewed routinely, and new legislative initiatives are intended to aid it in a competitive market.¹¹ The model from which the channel draws inspiration is “the great revolution launched by the Fox network in the United States when it offered a conservative alternative to the flood of American left-liberal media.”¹² The basic contention of the channel’s leadership is that Israel’s establishment media support the agenda of the center and left-wing parties. Channel 14 – like the judicial reform itself – is, in the view of its originators and managers, an attempt to recalibrate Israeli discourse so that it better correlates with the Israeli media-consuming public.

As with Fox News in the U.S., so in Israel is there no clear way to know which came first: the chicken of social tension or the golden egg of Now 14. But it is hard not to notice the close connection that emerged between Israel’s rising polarization and tension levels, and the channel’s growing dominance. In the days when the protests entered Israeli homes via television, Now 14 was the only channel whose coverage of them was conspicuously critical and hostile, and sympathetic of the government’s reform initiative. The channel attracted viewers who had felt alienated by the other channels’ reporting, and it began to set a journalistic tone that also had an influence on the right-wing parties.

Several of Now 14’s stars also have a social-media presence and impact; they have become major and influential voices among the social groups that are close to them ideologically. Like similar channels around the world, Now 14 takes a blunt and aggressive tone, and from time to time becomes caught up in “scandals” due to the outrageous statements of its presenters. These statements fuel debate, which in turn fuels interest in the channel and bolsters its status as a forum for what it claims is Israel’s silent majority. “For those in the national camp and most of the Israeli people, it may be the only place on television where their voice can be heard.”¹³ Now 14 is not, in fact, as dominant in the ratings as one might expect a channel that reflects the “majority” view to be, among other things because it is devoted almost exclusively to current events and is not a full-service broadcaster. Nevertheless, viewer surveys show that, as in the U.S.,¹⁴ one can now detect in Israel a viewership split between channels according to ideological outlook. Other channels responded to the rise of Channel 14 in a number of ways, including attempts to offer a different kind of journalistic balance – the prominent inclusion of speakers aligned with the government (Channel 11), or the adoption of an oppositional stance that more strongly expresses the views of those opposed to the government (Channel 13).

The ascendance of Now 14 this year was a process both fueled by the current polarization, and a contributor to that polarization. The more Israelis feel a need to connect with the group that expresses their views, and cast doubt on the legitimacy of opposing positions, the more they converge around “tribal campfires.” The result is a growing inability to engage in a common reading of reality. That is, the dispute between the camps does not reflect disparate views of an agreed-upon reality, but rather conflicting views about reality itself. And at those events (such as demonstrations) where reality “happens,” there has been an evident spillover of the conflict from the screen to the field: anti-government demonstrations have been marked by considerable harassment of Now 14 presenters, while at pro-government events and demonstrations there has been observed and documented harassment of announcers from other channels, those that Now 14 regularly attacks and brands as adversaries.

In fact, the ratings-and-ideology battle between channels reflects other battles being fought in Israel, battles that fuel division even in places where ideology had never come into play. When the chairman of Angel Bakery’s board of directors took part in a political demonstration outside the Bnei Brak home of a rabbi, the Haredim were called upon to boycott the company’s products. When a Now 14 announcer called for the release from prison of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s murderer, a public center-left campaign appealed to businesses to stop buying advertising time on the channel, and threatened that the businesses themselves would be boycotted if they did not comply. Of course, the boycott threat from that end did not remain unanswered: Now 14 announcers countered with a threat of their own, in the form of a call to viewers to stop purchasing the products of those who terminated their commercial dealings with the channel.

The reality where the consumption of television broadcasts is split along ideological-camp lines is creating a reality of ideological division even regarding the consumption of goods and services (food products, banking services) that have nothing whatsoever to do with ideology. In this sense, again, the rise of Now 14 – and counter-moves such as Channel 13’s decision to be the clarion voice of the government’s opponents (perhaps the Israeli equivalent of MSNBC) – reflect what happened in Israel this year and to a great degree ensure, or at least improve the chances, that this is what will happen next year as well.

Culture reflects the social mood and shapes the social mood in turn. The flag (grasped by both warring camps), the handmaid (as a justifiable (?) cultural symbol reflecting the opposition’s anxieties), and the channel (that amplifies the silenced (?) voice of the coalition camp) are current expressions of a vital, turbulent Israel torn from within.

Endnotes

1. https://www.mekomit.co.il/בעיני-אחים-לנשק-הגוש-נגד-הכיבוש-צריך-ל/

2. https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/2023-07-03/ty-article-opinion/.premium/00000189-1c3a-d145-a1e9-1f7eac130000

3. https://www.israelhayom.co.il/news/politics/article/14449526

4. https://www.haaretz.co.il/literature/study/2016-10-23/ty-article/.premium/0000017f-e2d5-d568-ad7f-f3ff9dcd0000

5. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-66304495

6. https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2018-july-2018/women-liberia’s-guardians-peace

7. https://nypost.com/2023/04/12/burn-bra-challenge-on-tiktok-over-dylan-mulvaney-nike-ads/

8. https://www.mako.co.il/women-women_news/Article-c7c4b9d77d1d781026.htm

9. https://www.israelhayom.co.il/magazine/hashavua/article/13824185

10. https://b.walla.co.il/item/3565346

11. https://www.the7eye.org.il/487194

12. https://www.makorrishon.co.il/economy/execs/456871/

13. https://mida.org.il/2023/03/02/ערוץ-14-מוביל-את-הדרך-לתקשורת-מאוזנת/

14. https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2014/10/21/section-1-media-sources-distinct-favorites-emerge-on-the-left-and-right/