Israel Hayom once again published an apartheid survey, a public opinion poll that addresses a representative sample of Jews only, even though the questions are relevant to both Jews and Arabs alike. On top of that, the website misled readers by referring to the survey findings as if they represent the position of all "Israelis."

Under the Title "The Great Fans Survey," journalist Adi Rubinstein published findings of a public opinion poll on preferences of football fans in Israel.

"The survey is the most comprehensive conducted in Israel since the beginning of the 21st century, and is intended to bring an updated, independent and in-depth picture of the state of Israeli football," Rubinstein wrote. The survey included, among other things, questions about the identity of the beloved and hated football team, violence in games and holding football games on Saturday. Some of the questions specifically touched on Arab society in Israel, such as a question about exposure to racist chants in stadiums and the question "Do you have a problem with a Muslim player playing on your team?"

The survey findings were presented while emphasizing differences between male and female fans, between secular and ultra-Orthodox fans, and between "armchair fans" and passionate fans who make sure to come to the stadium - but without any reference to Arab citizens of Israel.

Despite the fact that not only Jewish Israeli citizens watch football, are fans of teams and have opinions about the participation of Muslim players in their team, at the bottom of the article it was clarified that the survey was conducted among "a representative national sample of 400 fans of Israeli teams, aged 18 and over from the Jewish sector." In other words, without Arabs.

If that wasn't enough, it was further clarified that "in addition, reinforcements were carried out among ultra-Orthodox and Hapoel Beer Sheva fans, for the purpose of ensuring sufficient sample size for statistical analysis in these segments."

In other words, the survey editors went out of their way and invested additional resources to ensure proper representation of ultra-Orthodox and Hapoel Beer Sheva fans, but left Arab citizens of Israel, for example - fans of Bnei Sakhnin team, outside.

Apartheid surveys, meaning surveys that discriminate against a population group without factual justification, are prohibited according to the code of ethics of the Israel Press Council. The only exception lies in cases where the surveyed topic is not relevant to the excluded population (a survey entirely devoted to the Jewish Holy Days, for example, is not required to include Christians and Muslims).

Two tribunals in the Ethics Court of the Press Council determined that apartheid surveys are an improper practice with dangerous implications. "The ethics rules proclaim loudly that press freedom is not the freedom to publish things that exclude a certain group, and especially not a community, denomination or minority," ruled the Ethics Court. "When the survey is relevant to the entire public, it should be conducted among the entire public."

Although the question regarding games on Saturday is less relevant to the non-Jewish population, it would certainly have been possible to direct only that question to a representative sample of Jews, and direct the rest of the survey questions to a representative sample of all citizens of the State of Israel, as expected from a media outlet in a democratic state.

Not only that, Israel Hayom also misled readers when they repeatedly reported based on the survey findings that they represent the position of "football fans in Israel," and not the position of Jewish football fans in Israel.

The Ethics Court of the Press Council also specifically prohibited the formulation of misleading headlines, from which it can be inferred that findings of a survey conducted among Jews only represent the position of the entire public.

According to the Ethics Court, "presenting in the headline the position of 'Israelis,' 'residents of Israel' or the 'public,' when in practice it concerns the position of the 'Jews' sample - is simply misleading. There is no difficulty in explicitly saying in the headline that it concerns the position of 'Jews.' There is no need to lengthen the headline in order to be precise, hence, the misleading impression arising from the headline - does not stem from an attempt to summarize the main point."

Israel Hayom refused to comment.