Free Republic

Poll fever continues ahead of March 17 elections, and while results have shown Likud and Labor neck and neck, the latest survey by Channel 10 gives Labor a full four mandate gap over Likud. According to the poll, conducted by the Dialog Institute under the supervision of Prof. Camil Fuchs, Labor - which erased the word "Zionism" from its Arabic ad campaign - would get 24 mandates, while Likud would only receive 20. Coming in at third Jewish Home stays at 16 seats, followed by a joint Arab list that would receive 12 mandates. Such a joint list - formed...

Channel 10 went dark on Sunday night at about 10:30 p.m. Israel time, at the instruction of the channel’s employees union. Instead of regular programming, the channel displayed a picture of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, alongside the words, "In three days, Channel 10 will close. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who serves as Minister of Communications, refuses to find a solution. Due to this the employees union has decided to cease Channel 10’s broadcast for the night. We will resume broadcasting at 6:00 a.m." The channel has been facing financial difficulties for several years. In December of 2012, the Knesset held...

There are two main reasons that many leftists who are viscerally supportive of Israel have difficulty understanding and defending the Jewish state today. First, the storyline about Israel is deeply distorted. For instance, this week, Freedom House released its annual report on press freedom around the world. Israel's ranking was reduced from "free" to "partly free." Freedom House gave three reasons for downgrading Israel's status: the prosecution of Haaretz reporter Uri Blau for holding stolen top-secret documents; Channel 10's difficulties getting its broadcast license renewed; and the success of the Israel Hayom newspaper. As Jonathan Tobin at Commentary noted Wednesday,...