Attila Somfalvi, David Siman-Tov & Ofir Dayan
Introduction
The morning of Saturday, October 7, 2023, witnessed a massive shift in the tectonic plates in Israel. Not only was the Israeli defense establishment overwhelmed by a terrifying tsunami, and not only was the public sphere trampled under the weight of a massive failure that turned into a horrific tragedy, but the independent Israeli media was also overrun by an unprecedented wave of conformism unseen in the past 15 or 20 years. Many Israeli media outlets became part of the ongoing influence campaign that the State was waging through its various branches. To be clear: this was not a case of journalists being recruited by the Israeli establishment; it was a case of voluntarily serving as part of the psychological, social and public-opinion campaign that was launched within Israel the moment the war broke out. In other words, journalists did not become employees of the state, although their behavior and actions aligned perfectly with the national interest as it was perceived in the first weeks of the war.
In this article, we will examine the argument that the war in Gaza has had a significant and profound influence on the way Israeli media outlets have conducted themselves and continue to conduct themselves. Due to the enormity of the trauma caused by the events of that “Black Saturday,” members of the media and journalists chose to become “agents of unity,” whose goal was to unify the Israeli people, maintain national morale, and provide full support for the operations of the IDF and other branches of the Israeli security establishment as they sought to topple or eliminate the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip and ensure the return of the hostages.
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