התרגיל המסריח של יחימוביץ' ומצליח

תמלול הכתבה: התרגיל המסריח של יחימוביץ' ומצליח

In my conversations with leaders of the Eretz Chadasha Party, they noted that it had been shut out of news coverage by most of the major Israeli media.  Now I know why, at least in the case of one TV channel.  Labor Party chief, Shelly Yachimovitch made a deal with Channel 2′s politics reporter Rina Matzliach: in return for the latter agreeing not to report on the Party, Yachimovitch would offer her exclusive leaks. What makes this an even dirtier deal that what I’ve outlined above is that Matzliach said on air yesterday that the real reason she didn’t cover Eretz Chadasha was that she founded its leader, Eldad Yaniv, “untrustworthy.”  Hell, if you used that rule to determine which party leaders got coverage in Israel you wouldn't cover anyone.  Her claim was disingenuous.  So much so, that the NGO La’Daat filed a formal press complaint against Matzliach.

Now we know that  interview was a total smokescreen, and the real reason she shut the Party out was a good old fashioned back-room deal.  In business, it would be called restraint of trade, and both of them would be hauled in for questioning.  In media and politics, business is usual. In case anyone out there doubts this story, here are two of the “exclusives” Yachimovitch gave Matzliach. 

In one, Yachimovitch was the secret source who revealed (Hebrew) that Gen. (res.) Uri Sagi had joined Labor’s campaign as a Knesset candidate and its senior security expert. 

The second story conveyed a juicy scoop that Sagi was resigning because a woman complained that he’d harassed her years before when they both served in the IDF.  The latter  story reported not by matzliach, but by Amit Siegal, so as to cover Yachimovitch’s tracks and divert anyone attempting to trace the source of the stories.  Thanks to a senior source inside the Labor party, we don’t need to.  We know it.

After I first published the story in 'tikun olam', Segal has tweeted calling me a “lying fantasist” without offering any substantive rebuttal of this story.  In fact, he appears not to have even read  this post because he claims that I said he was party to the deal with Matzliach and Yachimovich, which isn’t what I wrote. Those charges of lying coming from Segal are rich since his employer, Channel 2, was forced to settle a libel suit brought against him by Hebrew University Prof. Amiram Goldblum, in which the station paid the victim for the damage to his reputation.

I also noticed, as far as I know, rina matzliah has made no comment on my charges.

I’ve already reported at my blog at least one competing party (guess which one?) originated bogus SMS messages to voters telling them polls showed Eretz Chadasha wasn’t going to pass the electoral threshold and that they shouldn’t waste their vote.

Now we know the fix was in and everything was focused.  The Labor Party is the same as any other party willing to use any and all tricks in the book to suppress votes for competitors.  Yachimovitch made a pretence of representing real change as she embraced the social justice movement that’d taken to the streets of Tel Aviv two summers ago.  She was supposed to be a breath of fresh air.There is indeed a smell emanating from her leadership of the campaign and the party, but it isn’t the smell of fresh air.  It’s the smell of dirty tricks politics as usual.

 Some of this may be why Labor’s polling fell as the campaign continued. From a high of 20 seats it declined till it actually won only  15, a distinct disappointment for those who hoped for a resurgence of the Party.  This story certainly won’t burnish Yachimovitch’s leadership of the election campaign or the Party in general.

Haaretz and Israeli tv also reported Yachimovitch’s purging labor of it's members who tweeted or published facebook statuses which were favorable to other parties. They are actually going to the trouble of hunting down such individuals and writing them formal letters drumming them out of the party. This is petty treading. The conduct of the old Stalinist MKVD and not a modern political party.

A few of my readers here were dubious about my claims of fraud and manipulation of the political process to subvert the electoral chances of Eretz Chadasha.  Maybe they’ll want to re-evaluate that judgment now.

There may be legitimate criticisms of Eretz Chadasha and its leaders.  I’m making no judgment on that issue since some I know have expressed such views about the party. 

But the place for those criticisms and that debate about the Party is in public forums and the media. 

Precisely where they didn't happen during this election cycle.  Collusion by Matzliach and Yachimovitch cheapens what little is left of Israeli democracy. In this case, a reporter and politician have engaged in an unholy pact to advance their own interests at the expense of the overall political system.

סוף תמלול הכתבה: התרגיל המסריח של יחימוביץ' ומצליח