Two Israeli Newsrooms Have Had Their Doors Smashed and One Assailant Left a Note

In a feature published at 01:31 on Thursday, the Times of Israel’s Ben Sales reports that an assailant vandalised Channel 12’s news office last week, smashing the door and leaving a note reading “Someone will die.” Channel 12 had been attacked earlier in July, possibly by the same man, and Haaretz’s door was likewise smashed. Condemnations came from the outlets, media advocacy organisations and politicians, Sales writes, “including some who accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of inciting attacks against the press.” His own framing line is the one to keep: “The shock, however, shouldn’t be mistaken for surprise.” The piece also quotes a political scientist it identifies as Rahat on the two leading opposition parties, led by Naftali Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot, as “centered on their leaders” and having held no primaries.

The campaign around the attacks is being run on eligibility. On 5 August, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called The Democrats leader Yair Golan “an Israel-hater” who “spreads racist blood libels against the Haredi sector,” and pledged to petition the Central Elections Committee to disqualify him from running “due to his repulsive racism”; the Golan remarks that prompted this are not reproduced in the liveblog item. Avigdor Liberman told Golan to “shut up,” arguing his rhetoric was aiding Netanyahu’s campaign; Golan told Liberman to “stop echoing” right-wing messaging. On 4 August the Likud party court barred serving MKs and ministers from competing for district slots, the party judge holding that it “harms value of equality.” Likud MK Dan Illouz, who quit the party, told the Times of Israel it “sold out principles to hang onto power.”

Assessment: A disqualification petition costs nothing to file and buys a week of coverage, which is why the Central Elections Committee has become a press strategy rather than a legal one. Note also what the desk cannot verify: no seat poll has been published in the past 48 hours. The numbers still in circulation are old — Steptoe’s late-May survey of polls put the Bennett-led bloc at 58–60 and the coalition at 50–52; JNS reported in mid-July that Channel 14’s polls alone had the coalition crossing 60 and reaching 65. When a campaign’s arithmetic is two months stale, its incitement fights fill the space.