Israel Matzav

Video: The ads the Central Election Committee does not want you to see

Tuesday night is the beginning of the election campaign ads - the only way the parties are permitted to advertise on television. The Central Election Committee vets the ads and they have banned two of them (actually one and part of another).

I have an English language description of each ad for you followed by a video of the ad.

The first ad - which was banned completely is from the Balad party, the Arab party that includes MK Hanin Zoabi of Mavi Marmara fame.

The first commercial, by Balad, features a belly-dancing, googley-eyed cartoon of Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman singing a version of the national anthem, HaTikvah, with a Middle-Eastern-music twist. Liberman is flanked by Right-wing MKs Arieh Eldad (Strong Israel), Danny Danon (Likud), Michael Ben-Ari (Strong Israel) and Ofir Akunis (Likud).

Central Election Committee chairman Judge Elyakim Rubinstein banned the ad from being played in what is officially known as the "Election Propaganda Broadcasts," because "disgracing symbols of the country, the Jewish democratic state, is not acceptable as part of any list's election campaign."

Let's go to the videotape (it's perhaps appropriate at this point to comment with bemusement about the fact that the Committee apparently still believes that more people will watch the ads on public television than will watch them on YouTube in Start-Up Nation).



The second ad in question was put out by Otzma l'Yisrael (Strength for Israel), the party of Arieh Eldad and Michael Ben Ari.

Rubinstein also asked Strong Israel to remove parts of its commercial. The ad begins with a message that many Israeli Arabs do not pay their share of taxes and a jingle calling for “hawks in the voting booth and hawks in the Knesset.”

Then, the clip shows the party’s leader, MK Michael Ben-Ari, offering tea and saying “fadel” (please in Arabic) to Strong Israel’s other leader, Arieh Eldad, who accepts and says “shukran” (thank you in Arabic). The two continue to have a conversation in Arabic with Hebrew subtitles essentially saying that all citizens must fulfill their obligations to society before receiving benefits.

The Central Election Committee chairman said that the sentence "there are no privileges without obligations, and without fulfilling obligations, you cannot demand privileges," which is said in Arabic, must be removed. In addition, the words "no to an Arab state, no to a state of [African] infiltrators," must be removed from Strong Israel's radio ads.

According to Eldad and Ben-Ari, the sentences they were asked to remove are "legitimate in a civilized democracy and justified from a public and legal standpoint. Any attempt to erase them harms freedom of expression."

Let's go to the videotape.



And for those who want to see the ads on television (I have to warn you that some of the fringe parties make some really funny commercials...).

The televised “Election Propaganda Broadcasts,” as they are officially called, will first be broadcast in Hebrew on Tuesday at 6 p.m. on Channel 10, followed by Channel 1 at 10 p.m. and Channel 2 at 11:15 p.m. They will continue on Sundays through Thursdays until January 21. Election commercials will also be played on Israel Radio and, for the first time, on Army Radio.

The ads are played all at once, and time is allocated according to the party’s size in the current Knesset, while new parties get a standard amount. It is illegal for parties to buy television or radio ads to be broadcast at any other time.

 Ah, elections in a nanny state. What could go wrong?

Labels: Knesset elections 2013

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:41 PM