
Channel 14's daily talk show, Hapatriotim (“The Patriots”) has set the stage for a shift in the boundaries of civil discourse in Israel's media space. Picture: Screenshot/YouTube
Channel 14's daily talk show, Hapatriotim (“The Patriots”) has set the stage for a shift in the boundaries of civil discourse in Israel's media space. Picture: Screenshot/YouTube
On 16 January 2009, Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza was still raging. Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish was living in the north of the strip. Having worked in Israeli hospitals, he was well known in Israel and spoke fluent Hebrew.
Journalist Shlomi Eldar from Channel 10, today’s Channel 13, had taken to calling Dr Abuelaish for updates from inside the strip. He wanted to share human stories from the Palestinian side with his audience in Israel.
On that fateful Friday, however, it was Dr Abuelaish who placed a call to Eldar. Israeli tank fire had hit the doctor’s apartment. Three of his daughters and one of his nieces were killed. With his relatives’ remains strewn around the room, still in a state of shock, Dr Abuelaish dialled Eldar’s number.
Eldar was live on air at the time: about to interview Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Acting on a gut feeling, he decided to pick up and put Dr Abuelaish on speaker for everyone at home to hear. The doctor’s anguished wails – “My God, what have we done?” – shook the Israeli public.
Two days later, the war came to an end.
At a conference in London towards the end of 2024, I had the opportunity to ask former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert if the incident played a role in convincing him to stop the operation. He said he did not stop the war because of it, but that it had left a profound impression on him.
Replicating such coverage on Israeli television today would be “absolutely impossible”, according to Eldar. Amid the current war, he told me, “Israeli TV and media don’t show anything from Gaza.”
He is right: today, nationalist sentiment dominates Israeli television, with little room for stories from Gaza. Channel 14, a fast-rising, government-aligned network, epitomises this shift. Its flagship show, Hapatriotim (“The Patriots”), blends satire, nationalism, and far-right ideology, offering a lens into how Israeli media has evolved in wartime.
By examining recurring themes across eight episodes of The Patriots incorporating insights from journalists and media researchers, my fellowship project aims to shed light on the reshaping of public discourse in Israel.
Channel 14, originally launched as a niche Jewish heritage channel in 2014, underwent a radical transformation after its rebranding in 2021. Backed by Russian-Israeli billionaire Yitzchak Mirilashvili, it pivoted to politics, aligning itself with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the far right.
The channel’s rise was bolstered by regulatory changes favouring “microchannels”, granting Channel 14 significant financial and operational advantages. Its prime-time programming now rivals mainstream networks, and its ideological bent has made it a central player in Israeli media. Netanyahu himself granted The Patriots his first Israeli TV interview following the 7 October 2023 attacks – a testament to its growing influence, or a signal of political alignment?
On 16 January 2025, an appeal was lodged with the Attorney General’s office by The Journalists’ Association. It asks why, under Netanyahu’s administration, the volume of government advertising on Channel 14 has jumped by 280%, while other channels have suffered cuts.
Filmed in front of a studio audience, The Patriots is as much theatre as it is journalism. Its set – a blue arc-shaped desk flanked by a semi-circle of red columns – evokes a modern Parthenon, while background visuals alternate between the Channel 14 newsroom and patriotic imagery. The programme features a rotating host and a panel of six commentators who discuss current events, although, as Ruth Margalit observed in a recent essay for The New Yorker, “They seem to spend more time picking apart social-media posts by liberal activists than they do discussing policy.”
Recurring themes dominate the show’s narrative in the episodes reviewed for this project. Civilian casualties in Gaza are ignored and, in one episode, Palestinians were portrayed as worse than Nazis for at least “[Germans] came with a culture based on which it was possible to redevelop, [and with Palestinians] this is not the case.” On another episode, panellists dismissed humanitarian aid to Gaza as frivolous luxury items, mocking it as “Nutella, mangoes or bananas, while we [Israelis] are fighting for our existence”. Criticism of Israel from abroad is deflected by branding international bodies, like the ICC, as antisemitic, with panellists comparing the court to a “Nazi tribunal”.
Humour and satire are core to The Patriot’s appeal, but its commentary often veers into the extreme. Militaristic music and incendiary language are used to glorify IDF operations, while guests like radical activist Shlomo Yehezkel Hai Sarid, whose organisation targeted humanitarian aid convoys on their way to Gaza, are given a platform to champion hardline views. Such rhetoric has normalised extremist perspectives in the public sphere, eroding the boundaries of acceptable discourse.
The rise of Channel 14 is emblematic of broader trends in Israeli media. Historically robust, freedom of expression has been reshaped by both societal pressures and economic realities. While state censorship remains limited to military affairs, self-censorship has become a pervasive force. Journalists seem to avoid stories that might alienate audiences traumatised by the 7 October attacks, contributing to a one-sided portrayal of the conflict.
Mainstream channels, like Channel 12, have also been criticised for their lack of coverage of Gaza’s civilian casualties. Research by media scholar Dr Ayala Panievsky found that, of more than 700 prime-time news items aired during the first six months of the war, only four mentioned civilian deaths in Gaza.
Arab Israeli voices are similarly marginalised. According to the Representation Index, only 1.5% of speakers on Israeli media in early 2024 were Arab, despite Arabs making up 22% of the population. Channel 12 scored even lower at 0.8%, marking a stark departure from the 1990s, when Palestinian officials regularly appeared on Israeli TV, often speaking in Hebrew.
Channel 14’s success is not just a story of a single network – it reflects a tectonic shift in Israeli media. Despite this, panellists on The Patriots embrace Netanyahu’s anti-media rhetoric, often referring critically to “the media” as if they were not part of the industry.
The channel has become a powerful tool for rallying nationalist sentiment, but its rise has come at the expense of diverse narratives and critical journalism. By normalising extremist views and excluding Palestinian voices, it has widened the gap between Israeli and international perspectives on the war.
The stakes are high. As one Israeli journalist put it: “We’re seeing completely different things. We’re reading completely different things. The images that we are bombarded with are completely different.”
In this fragmented media landscape, the challenge is not only to report the truth but to ensure that all sides of the story are heard. Too many voices – and facts – have been left behind.
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