“FAKE NEWS” AND PARALLEL POPULISMS: AN ANALYSIS OF MEDIA COVERAGE OF TRUMP AND NETANYAHU’S ATTACKS ON THE PRESS A Scholarly Thesis Presented To The Honors Tutorial College Ohio University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation from the Honors Tutorial College with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Journalism by Lilli Sher April 2020 Table of Contents Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………………2 Introduction………………………………………………………………………...……………...4 Chapter One: Literature Review…………………………………………………………………..7 Chapter Two: Research Methods………………………………………………………………...36 Chapter Three: Haaretz Analysis………………………………………………………………...43 Chapter Four: The New York Times Analysis…………………………………………………....63 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….....99 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………111 Acknowledgments I am so grateful to the many people who helped, guided, and supported me as I completed my undergraduate thesis. First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Aimee Edmondson. She prompted me to look at my topic in new ways, and provided me with great structure, edits, input, and guidance – especially as my thesis topic evolved. I would also like to thank the other professors who provided immense support and guidance as I worked on my thesis: Dr. Susan Burgess, whose expertise on law and society studies helped me frame my thesis, and whose encouragement and mentorship has meant a great deal to me; Professor Thomas Hodson, who urged me to conduct a comparative study of Israeli and American society in some capacity for my thesis; Dr. Nukhet Sandal, who helped refine my knowledge of Israeli society, history, and politics, and Dr. Bernhard Debatin, my academic advisor, for his support and guidance during my entire collegiate career. I am grateful to the Honors Tutorial College for providing me with the most academically stimulating and vibrant four years of college that I ever could have imagined. Additionally, I was able to travel to Israel through funding from the College in May of 2019. I would like to thank Dr. Roy Peled of the Haim Striks School of Law in Rishon Lezion; Dr. Adam Shinar of the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya; Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler of the Israel Democracy Institute; Gideon Levy of Haaretz; Boaz Rakocz, CEO and founder of The Whistle factchecking mechanism, and Dr. Karine Nahon of the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya. Thank you all so much for taking the time to speak with me during my time in Israel. Without you all, my understanding of Israeli society, media, politics, and law would be greatly lacking, and I am extremely grateful. 2 Finally, I would like to thank my friends, family, and mentors for their endless support. I would particularly like to thank my mentors Tanya Conrath, Margaret Hutzel, and Sarah Livingston; my parents Scott and Cheryl Sher, my siblings, my sister-in-law, and my cousins Jill Kupferberg and Doug Simmons; and my friends Reiya Bhat, Hannah Bryan, Julie Ciotola, and Hazel Goodburn for their support this year specifically. Thank you all so incredibly much. 3 Introduction President Donald Trump enters a church called “The Church of Fake News.” The pews are filled with representatives of various mainstream media outlets such as CNN, as well as those from social justice movements like Black Lives Matter. The representative from CNN approaches him. With a roar, Trump begins to violently attack the CNN representative, and then starts to shoot and assault the other representatives seated in the church. This is the fantasy of the far-right. The above scene is from a mock video that was screened at a three-day gathering of Trump supporters in October 2019.1 Threatening and delegitimizing rhetoric wielded toward media outlets has been a hallmark of Trump’s campaign and subsequent presidency. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel delegitimized the media in a similar manner since he rose to political prominence in the 1990s. At a rally in 1999, he led the crowd in chanting “haim ma fa’adim” (“they are afraid” in Hebrew) in explicit reference to the press.2 Before this, Netanyahu used violent, aggressive rhetoric against then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a Labor Party politician who engaged in the Oslo Accords, which attempted to broker peace between Israel and Palestine. Netanyahu, who did not support such a deal, engaged in rhetoric against Rabin, and claimed that it supported terrorism and did not care about Israel. Many people believe that this rhetoric incited Rabin’s assassination at the hands of a Jewish anti- peace extremist.3 1 Rich McKay and Steve Holland, “White House reporters slam mock video of Trump killing journalists and critics,” Reuters, October 14, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-trump-video/white-house- reporters-slam-mock-video-of-trump-killing-journalists-and-critics-idUSKBN1WT0IP. 2 King Bibi. Directed by Dan Shadur. Jerusalem, Israel: Atzmor Productions, 2018. 3 Ibid. 4 Beyond their shared hatred of the press, both of these leaders faced impeachment and indictment at the time that this thesis was written. The U.S. House of Representatives approved articles of impeachment against Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate on these two counts of impeachment on February 5, 2020.4 Netanyahu was indicted on charges of bribery, breach of trust, and fraud in February of 2019.5 The relationship between the United States and Israel has also changed a great deal as Trump and Netanyahu’s terms overlap. Since Trump took office, he moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, released a controversial peace plan that gives Israel the green light to annex the majority of the West Bank, and pulled humanitarian aid from Palestine – all of which are unprecedented moves in U.S. foreign policy toward Israel. 6 Additionally, Trump and Netanyahu engage with “fake news” rhetoric in two different ways: By actively engaging in delegitimizing rhetoric toward the press, such claiming the media is engaged in a “witch hunt” against them and deeming all unfavorable coverage as “fake news” or otherwise fabricated, and by subverting the mainstream media through social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. In this thesis, I will analyze coverage of “fake news” as reported by the New York Times and Haaretz over a three-year period to illustrate how systemic media delegitimization functions as an arm of right-wing populism, and what this rhetoric reveals about the contemporary rise of right-wing populism. This will be achieved by focusing specifically on the rhetoric used by the 4 Elizabeth Janowski, “Timeline: Trump impeachment inquiry,” NBC News, October 16, 2019, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/timeline-trump-impeachment-inquiry-n1066691. 5 “Netanyahu Reelected: Everything You Need to Know About the Prime Minister's Corruption Scandals,” Haaretz, April 10, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-reelected-prime-minister-s-corruption-scandals- 1.7106396. 6 Alexander Griffing and Esther Solomon, “Trump, Israel and the Middle East: Mayhem, Betrayal and 'America First,'” Haaretz, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/EXT-INTERACTIVE-trump-iran-israel-1.8269016. 5 current leaders of the United States and Israel – respectively, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – at the time that the analyzed stories were published. I will also comment on the changing nature of the relationship between the United States and Israel under these leaders. This study is pertinent because the particular flavor of right-wing populist beliefs espoused by Trump and Netanyahu are popular with other world leaders, such as Prime Minister Modi of India, President Bolsonaro of Brazil, and Prime Minister Erdoğan of Turkey. It is essential for citizens to be aware of the pattern of isolationist, racist, and xenophobic rhetoric espoused by these leaders, and especially important for the press to serve as diligent watch dogs as these leaders attempt to undermine fundamental human and democratic rights. In chapter one, I will present a review of literature on this topic, which includes a background of “fake news” in the United States, in Israel, and elsewhere, as well as brief overviews of Israeli and American freedom of expression case law and the political climate in each country. In chapter two, I will give an overview of the methodology used to guide the research conducted for this thesis – primarily, rhetorical analysis using a law and society studies lens. Chapter three presents an analysis of Haaretz coverage, and chapter four is an analysis of New York Times coverage. Finally, a conclusion of the study and recommendations for journalists will be offered. 6 Chapter one: Literature Review The American public, press, and academic spheres were shocked by the presidential election of Donald Trump in November 2016. Regardless of one’s political leanings, it is impossible to deny that Trump’s brazen attitude, inflammatory speech, and political views are unprecedented in the United States political experience. The United States How Democracies Die, published in 2019 by Harvard University political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, was borne out of the professors’ fears that the United States was slipping into the patterns of authoritarianism that they studied. Levitsky and Ziblatt define populist leaders as those who “…tend to deny the legitimacy of established parties, attacking them as undemocratic and even unpatriotic. They tell voters that the existing system is not really a democracy but instead has been hijacked, corrupted, or rigged by the elite. And they promise to bury that elite and return power to 'the people.'"7 The authors subsequently construct a table outlining the four key indicators of populist behavior: Rejection of (or weak commitment to) democratic rules of the game, denial of the legitimacy of political opponents, toleration or encouragement of violence, and readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents and media. The last tenant is most pertinent to this thesis, as it is exemplifies the tendency of authoritarian populist leaders to delegitimize the mainstream press.