Israel's Channel 14
Broadcasting Palestinian Destruction While Supporting It
Who in Israel cares about Palestinian citizens?
Especially since the purposely vague doublespeak of the last 19 months has been cleaned up and finally clarified from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday. The Israeli government’s next phase in the war with Gaza is to completely clear the area, occupy it, and “take control of the entire territory,” said Netanyahu. Indefinitely. It was said, from his government, that this would not be the next step.
Conflict across the globe pulls news coverage away from places where it should remain. That’s the state of a world where breaking news abounds. At all times. Sit for a moment and consider news broadcast from Israel. That’s where we’ll focus on the media apparatus that’s contributing to the destruction of the people of Gaza. Not with missiles or bullets but still aligned with those who support and call for lethal ends to a people dying of starvation, lacking access to clean water, and appropriate medical care.
Channel 14, also known as Now 14 in Israel, is a media outlet that doesn’t hide its extreme-right political leanings. Although to call their point of view a leaning would have the word undertaking an arduous amount of lifting. Their analysts, talking heads, and hosts are ultranationalists. Proud ones. Objectivity is not an aim of their coverage.
They don’t need to duck their heads while broadcasting. Nor do they inject astute insight alongside their coverage or opinion. They excel at the other end of the spectrum for themselves and the eyeballs they attract. They’re at their best in normalizing consent to carry out what can only be named as terror. They have the support of the Israel government. Netanyahu himself granted Channel 14 one of the few interviews he agreed to since the war in Gaza began. Even appearing live on-air as a featured guest during a roundtable.
The channel has been expanding their influence over the last five years. Growing an audience from the viewing public within Israel to earn massive ratings. Finding their own path in mining the dehumanization of Palestinians and Islam that’s been prevalent, ongoing, and amplified across Israel ever since the Nakba. Even before it.
Depending on the night or the panel of commentators, it scores the largest viewership across the land mass that constitutes Israel as it is currently drawn. Channel 14 boasts large wins over traditional outlets Keshet 12 and Reshet 13. Topics are directly anchored around how Israel has to deal with Gaza — and also the Palestinians in the West Bank.
Overwhelmingly, operations of the Israeli government find a comfortable landing place at Channel 14. Pick a guest or a politician, past or present, and they’ll look into the camera and try to one-up each other on who among them can shout the most extreme and utterly inhumane sentence about Gaza. Over chuckles and sneers they’ll cavalierly banter about the future of the illegal Jewish settlements going up across the West Bank as this sentence is being typed.
There’s no pushback. No measured critique on the validity or brutality that Palestinians are forced to endure. Channel 14 is a siren for the most staunchly conservative elements of the Israeli government and clusters of Israeli citizens who have been moving in the same direction since October 7, 2023.
Channel 14 is taking up the lead on advancing, through their coverage, the policy shift from merely an oppressive and tiered apartheid regime to one featuring all the ingredients of a genocide. Channel 14 is catering to an audience in Israel that is politically, morally, and socially simpatico with Netanyahu and his government.
The wider media in Israel is copying Channel 14.
It could be for ratings. Media entities are businesses. Ratings, the live viewership figures, are still the currency that drives advertising and additional funding from parent companies. There’s an appetite from Israeli citizens to consume hard-right programming. It’s a need being satisfied.
Channel 14 is owned by Yitzchak Mirilashvili. A 41-year-old Russian-born investor and entrepreneur who grew up in Israel. He co-founded the Russian social networking platform, VKontakte. Criminal investigations have been levied towards the channel for their programming. Mirilashvili broke into the television industry with Channel 20. Initially examining historic issues connected to Israeli society. After Netanyahu’s support, the Knesset passed an amendment in February 2018 allowing the outlet to rebrand as Channel 14. Identifying itself as a news broadcaster. Doing so without the oversight of the traditional news within Israel.
Channel 14 receives millions in funding from the Israeli government but since it’s designated as a “microchannel” it avoids the regulations that Channel 12 and Channel 13 must adhere to.
Cementing the Israel Position Clearly
On May 5, 2025, Israel Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich asked Israelis to embrace “occupation.” At the Jerusalem Conference, organized by the right-wing Besheva newspaper, Smotrich told Channel 12 journalist Amit Segal, “We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word ‘occupation.'”
“We are finally taking control of all humanitarian aid, so that it does not become supplies for Hamas. We are separating Hamas from the population, cleansing the Strip, returning the hostages — and defeating Hamas.” He continues explaining that once the new offensive in Gaza begins there will be “no retreat from the territories we have conquered, not even in exchange for hostages.”
Are Jewish citizens in Israel OK with this coverage? Do they accept such violent messaging that’s meant to ease the erasure of the lives, culture, churches, universities, schools, infrastructure, businesses, agriculture, religion, and humanity of Palestinian people in Gaza? Also, in the West Bank?
I’m not referring to Jewish resistance to the suffering of Palestinians around the globe. No.
Do Jews inside Israel agree with the climbing Palestinian death toll a short distance away from their neighborhoods?
Will they support the encroaching reality of the Greater Israel that Netanyahu has dreamed of?
Do they support the further erasure of a people simply because…they are people? That have the nerve to want to exist?
There’s certain to be a clarifying day. A year from now. Five. Ten. Fifteen, possibly. On that morning everyone with a camera and within two feet of a microphone will declare that they were against this from the beginning.
This atrocity was streamed live in our current digital age. Horrors weren’t hidden like many crimes akin to this from the past. Channel 14 has not held back from their position that the warfare is warranted. That it must be done to keep Jewish people and Israel secure.
People cheered. Troops recorded themselves mocking dead Palestinians. Prancing around dead bodies. Women, children, men, doctors, etc. Lauded the bombing. Politicians nauseatingly used the tragic events of October 7 to justify all the horrors that are happening. Today. Tomorrow.
Where are the Jewish voices inside Israel that denounce coverage of the eradication and subjugation of a people?
Channel 14 has made their stand clear. There’s no nuance.