Benjamin Netanyahu’s government’s multi-front assault on the media - spearheaded by an economic boycott of Haaretz - is a blatant attempt to intimidate Israeli journalists into self-censorship and weaken press outlets that continue to dare to report critically on the behavior and policies of the nation’s leaders, media critic and journalist Oren Persico said on the Haaretz Podcast.

The sanctions imposed on Haaretz, and the new bill introduced this week aimed at defunding Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, are designed to “bully the free press” and act as a “sword that is supposed to hang over their heads and and try to intimidate them,” said Persico, a staff writer for The Seventh Eye, an independent Israeli  magazine that covers the media.

Anat Saragusti, press freedom director at the Union of Journalists in Israel, explained how these aggressive moves by the government are accompanied by an orchestrated smear campaign against journalists and whole outlets. The smear campaign, led by Netanyahu and his loyalists, she said, has already led to physical violence against reporters in the field and threats against journalists.

“Even if some of these laws will not pass in the Knesset, and even if the sanctions will not be imposed on Haaretz, it has already had a very, very powerful effect,” she said.