’Part of a Bigger Mission to Silence Haaretz’ •
Inside the Government’s 52 Page Report Claiming Haaretz Is ’Defaming’ Israel
Linda Dayan
11:35 PM • January 14 2026
▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2026-01-14/ty-article/.premium/inside-the-governments-52-page-report-claiming-haaretz-is-defaming-israel/0000019b-bd50-d85c-a9fb-fd57228d0000
The Israeli government commissioned a report from a private business intelligence firm to back its filing to the High Court of Justice, in which it is justifying the decision to impose sanctions on the paper. The report doesn’t refute Haaretz’s reporting, but attempts to frame critical views and journalistic investigations as treasonous.
“It appears that the Haaretz newspaper expresses support for the enemy during wartime, harms IDF soldiers and the war effort, calls for [military draft] evasion, accuses the Israeli military of genocide, slanders the state, defames the Zionist enterprise as a whole, calls for the imposition of international sanctions against the state and its elected officials, supports the International Criminal Court in The Hague and damages the image and standing of the State of Israel in the world.”
This is the first clause in the affidavit that the Israeli government filed on Monday with the High Court of Justice. It is a response to a petition that Haaretz filed after the government ordered its ministries to cease all contact with Haaretz, including cancelling subscriptions for the ministries and the military and pulling all government advertising.
The affidavit, which is 52 pages long, cites many Haaretz headlines and texts, and shows that they have been cited by NGOs, other media outlets, Wikipedia articles, International Criminal Court complainants and other bodies as a means to portray Israel – and its government’s decisions – in a critical light. It highlights the paper’s investigative reporting, and the use in op-eds of terms the government considers contentious such as genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
“Israel’s enemies in the West Bank include the settlers, and the IDF is doing nothing to stop them. Its soldiers actively take part in pogroms, disgracefully abusing residents – photographing and humiliating them, killing and arresting them,” is one “offending” passage cited from a Hebrew-language Gideon Levy column.
Another is a that asks, “Do you have to follow a [military] command if it means expelling the population?”
A third example is a news story from November 2023 by Amira Hass, describing the situation in Gaza, titled: “Israel’s army urges Gazans to go south, but they fear being bombed along the way.”
Although the affidavit highlights Haaretz’s coverage of Israel’s actions in Gaza, its treatment of Palestinians and, as it notes, the statements made by the country’s leadership, it does not refute it. Its criticism seems to be not that Haaretz is painting a false picture of Israel and its government, but is showing parts of it to the world that the people in power would rather suppress.
A lot of the emphasis in the affidavit and the government-commissioned report attached to it is on the fact the Haaretz publishes its reporting in English, in addition to Hebrew, and is therefore cited widely in the international press and by NGOs.
“There are media criticisms that are very legitimate – accusing the media of being inaccurate or making certain mistakes, or not being professional enough. But this is not what we are seeing coming from this government, or the previous Netanyahu government,” explains Dr. Ayala Panievsky, author of “The New Censorship: How the War on the Media is Taking Us Down.” A former journalist (including a stint at Haaretz), Panievsky currently researches the effects of populist attacks on global media at City St. Georges University in London.
Over the years, Haaretz and other media outlets who are critical of the government have been accused “of treason, of working against fellow citizens, of being anti-patriotic, and hating Israel and being antisemitic,” Panievsky explains. “This wasn’t always the case in Israel. That’s not normal. It has become normalized, just because it’s been the dominant media criticism of our time.”
Panievsky adds that the situation isn’t unique to Israel, where liberal sections of the media are accused of bolstering the out-group enemy – in this case the Palestinians.
“In many European countries,” she says “we see refugees or asylum seekers or immigrants as the main scapegoats. And then the enemy from within is the NGOs who will support them, the human-rights activists. And then the media is accused of serving these enemies from within and without.”
Panievsky says that this approach is increasingly prevalent in the U.S. as it demonizes immigrants, and in Narendra Modi’s India, where the media is portrayed as serving the Muslims.
’Enforcing Loyalty to the Regime’
The government contracted a private, Herzliya-based strategic intelligence company named ExpertIT to put together a report, which is based on data collected in February 2025, and focuses on Haaretz’s impact on the “delegitimization activity against Israel in the world.”
The firm claims it “undertook a broad mapping of flagship articles that present Israel in a negative light. Some of them present the conflict in Gaza through Palestinian eyes in the interviews and investigations [Haaretz] conducted.”
One example they presented was an opinion piece by Yoel Elizur, a psychologist who researches soldiers who commit atrocities during war. The report stresses the differences between the Hebrew and English headlines for the piece; the former is “Don’t worry grandpa, I’ll refuse an Illegal order,” whereas the English version is titled with one of the soldiers’ quotes: “When you Leave Israel and Enter Gaza You are God: Inside the Minds of IDF Soldiers Who Commit War Crimes” – an unflattering portrait of IDF soldiers.
The report also takes issue with a Haaretz report on claims of a Palestinian prisoner who said he was beaten, tortured and sexually abused in an Israeli prison – “The Haaretz article is based on the singular testimony of a Palestinian named Amer Abu Halil who belongs to Hamas,” it says.
The report also includes factual errors that then lead to false accusations against Haaretz. In one case, the report claims that an investigative story in which IDF soldiers tell of arbitrary killings in the Netzarim corridor of Gaza was published in English weeks before it was published in Hebrew, and with different framing. The report goes as far as saying that the article “was aimed at a foreign audience and not an Israeli audience, and had a different narrative.” But the articles shown in the report are simply two different stories by military correspondent Yaniv Kubovich.
The exposé on the soldiers appeared in English and in Hebrew on December 18, 2024. The other investigation, about a division commander in Gaza who insisted on sending in troops to an area where there were still terrorists, leading to the killing of eight soldiers – was published in Hebrew on December 31, then in published in English a few hours later.
The idea that we should not talk about – let alone air to the world – what is happening in Gaza “is not based on an actual attempt to debunk the reality in Gaza,” says Panievsky, “it’s more about enforcing this loyalty regime where, if you are talking about what’s happening in Gaza, regardless of whether it’s true or false, you are serving our enemies. It’s always this zero-sum game: If you cover what’s happening in Gaza, you don’t care about the casualties on the Israeli side.”
She adds that this is a trap that the Israeli press has largely fallen into since October 7. “I do think many journalists have accepted this premise that criticizing the military in times of war is somehow unpatriotic or unfair – rather than the best thing you can do for the future of this place.”
Populist opponents of the media “really made people believe that criticizing the military to some extent, criticizing the government’s policies, acknowledging the human suffering in Gaza or the West Bank or even Palestinian citizens of Israel is a treasonous act.”
The affidavit and the government decision to cease contact with Haaretz, Panievsky says, “are part of a bigger mission to silence Haaretz and to silence others. I think they know that Haaretz is not going to be intimidated by them, but others might, and a lot of it is about creating this very uneven playing field where you know that certain topics and articles and stories will get you into trouble, while others won’t.”
Much of the Israeli media, she adds, “has already been intimidated and scared away from [reporting] reality. So it’s working. It’s really working.”