When the Prime Minister’s spokesperson calls
The film ‘12 Days in June’ by Moriah Asraf and Alon Ben-David, aired on Channel 13, is a full-on propaganda film, which works to glorify accused Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defence Minister Katz, the IDF, the Air Force and everyone who took part in the bombing operation in Iran. There is not a single challenging question asked, there is no criticism, there is only flattery.
By Chen Egri — The Seventh Eye • Translated by Sol Salbe
The film opens with the story of the web of deception woven by Israel in order to catch the Iranians by surprise. Asraf and Ben-David do not expose sophisticated intelligence operations, Instead the reveal the government’s use of the Israeli media, and in fact the use of them personally. As is well known by now, Netanyahu’s office issued a fake statement stating that he would be on holidays in the north of the country during the weekend before his son Avner’s wedding, in order to send the message that it was “business as usual.” But that was not all the deception was.
Asraf, News 13’s political correspondent, revealss another aspect of that deception: behind-the-scenes briefings designed to plant false news in the media. In other words: not wishing to rely solely on the credibility, to the extent that it exists, of the Prime Minister’s Office’s announcements, the choice was made to exploit the media’s credibility. The credibility that professional journalists who ostensibly do not “work” for the government, as is the case of their Iranian colleagues, for example.
“You did something very strange that evening, you called me and told me that you need me to quickly get out that the head of the Mossad and Minister Dermer will meet over the weekend with US envoy Witkoff before his meetings in Oman, and when I asked you if it could wait until the morning, you told me: ‘No. It needs to come out now,’” Asraf tells Omer Dostri, who was the prime minister’s spokesperson for about five minutes. Dostri confirms that the report, which once again startled the hearts of Israelis concerned about the fate of the captives, was fake from start to finish: “The goal, of course, was to create some kind of routine and optimism for negotiations.” Indeed, Asraf reported on 9 June that “Israeli officials told Channel 13 this evening (Monday) that Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and Mossad Head Dadi Barnea will meet with US envoy Steve Witkoff before the next round of talks between the United States and Iran, which is expected to take place at the end of the week. The discussions will focus on the draft nuclear agreement, and the location of the meeting will be determined tomorrow.” The false report is still posted on the network’s website.
This is an inconceivable television moment. Both Asraf and Dostri take it as par for the course, not only that the Prime Minister’s Office would be passing false information to the journalist, but also that the journalist would publish those things immediately, without hesitation or questions. In other words, a senior journalist presents herself as someone who effectively works for the Prime Minister’s spokesperson, and this does not seem strange to either the spokesperson or the journalist.
This is not an issue of just a particular journalist: Asraf is the political correspondent on the television station that is perceived as the most critical of the Netanyahu government. This is not just a spokesperson: Dostri, during his short term as the accused Prime Minister’s spokesperson, behaved in a Trumpist style, acted and expressed himself in a bullying manner, and entered into publicised confrontations with reporters — and Asraf was at the forefront of them.
In September 2024, Dostri removed Asraf from the political reporters’ WhatsApp group, in retaliation for her posting a message from the Prime Minister’s Office on her Telegram account — and writing that it came from the Prime Minister’s Office and not from “a source immersed in the details” as the spokesperson wanted. In January 2025, he removed her from a flight to the US on the “Wing of Zion” [Israel’s Air Force 1], after she was caught rummaging through the drawers in the office.
In other words, even the journalist from the media outlet that is perceived as most hostile to Netanyahu, who is herself in a public confrontation with his spokesperson — volunteers in an instant to spread fake news in the newsroom as soon as she receives a call from the spokesperson.
Selling credibility
This is not the only moment in the film that shows, out of total obliviousness, how the mainstream media fully cooperates with the Netanyahu government and serves as a hollow conduit for it to convey messages, even while the latter is waging a relentless incitement campaign against it.
Here at The Seventh Eye, we have shown, time and again, how journalists in the newsrooms serve Netanyahu, his messages and his narrative in everything related to the Captives Deal and the continuation of the war. The second important section in Asraf and Ben-David’s film focuses on a fake report about a cabinet discussion on the subject The Captives Deal. This time the interviewee is not a former spokesperson but a veteran Likud MK, Israel Katz, whom Netanyahu appointed as defence minister.
Asraf sits across from Katz and says that “a cabinet discussion is scheduled for Thursday. It is supposed to deal, on the face of it, according to the announcement that went out to the media, with the captives.” Katz interrupts her as a smug smile spreads across his face and says: “Yes, we have misled you and that’s perfectly fine.”
Asraf does not object, or even raise an eyebrow, a gesture that Yonit Levy, the presenter on the competing channel, has adopted as a substitute for journalistic criticism. Instead, she simply presents the report she aired on Channel 13’s newscast that evening, about “the progress on the issue of the captives” and that “in two days, on Thursday, the political-security cabinet is expected to convene to discuss this proposal.”
On Channel 13, they do not think to stop for a moment and ask an obvious question: If our journalists are a tool for conveying messages from the Prime Minister’s Office, why should the public trust us more than they thrust that office? And in fact, why do we even need intermediaries? After all, Netanyahu has TikTok and Twitter and Facebook.
In this sense, the doco 12 Days in June is not a film about another military operation in the Middle East, but about the way in which the free media tosses to the wind the only asset it has left in the age of networks: credibility.
Putting the community to sleep
Incredibly, and apparently unwittingly, Asraf reveals in these two moments both the practice of control by Netanyahu and his government over the media and the submission with which journalists accept that control.
The political reporter received an order from the Prime Minister’s spokesperson and carried it out. She agreed to publish the “exclusive” news story that was invented in the spokesperson’s feverish mind without checking its authenticity, because had she refused, the exclusivity would have been passed on to another reporter. In the same way, she delivers a government media release verbatim, without verifying it at all.
In the name of the scoop, in order to obtain and maintain senior sources in the government, or perhaps simply to avoid making an effort, Asraf and her colleagues in the news studios betray their position, journalistic ethics, and their viewers. At best, these are fake items designed to lull the Iranians to sleep. At worst, and much more commonly, these are spins designed to lull us, the public, to sleep.
Translated from Hebrew by Sol Salbe, Middle East News Service
