The narratives of false and illegitimate propaganda that were predicted to dominate the airwaves leading up to the October 26 Knesset elections appeared hundreds of times in extreme and heightened forms across the five Israeli television channels during June and July. This finding emerges from an analysis by The Seventh Eye’s "subtext" service.

The analysis further reveals that Channel 14 is the main vehicle for false and illegitimate  election propaganda, by a vast margin compared with other channels: more than half of the instances of false and improper narratives appeared on the channel owned by the Mirilashvili family. The channel also leads in the level of severity of these instances.

After Channel 14, i24news, which broadcasts on Channel 15 and is owned by French-Jewish businessman Patrick Drahi, raises eyebrows. Another troubling finding concerns the public broadcaster, Kan 11, which leads the two commercial channels, 12 and 13, in the number of times false and illegitimate election propaganda narratives were aired.

In the run-up to the election campaign, we worked to identify the major deceptive propaganda patterns expected to shape the Knesset election. The goal was to "inoculate" the media and the general public against them by exposing and debunking them in advance.

List of false and illegitimate narratives in the 2026 election campaign:

1. Political delegitimization of the Arab community – Portraying Arab parties and politicians as illegitimate, as supporters of terrorism, and as enemies of the state, with the aim of suppressing the Arab vote and preventing the possibility of coalition cooperation with them
2. Delegitimization of gender equality – Portraying gender equality and the integration of women into the IDF and the public sphere as malevolent values ​​that endanger the IDF, the Jewish state, and religious society.
3. Netanyahu is above the law – The claim that Netanyahu’s trial should be cancelled or delayed because it interferes with his role as Prime Minister or endangers national security, thereby granting him special legal status.
4. Delegitimization of opposition candidates and parties – Portraying Netanyahu’s political rivals as traitors, "not of Israel," defeatists, or partners in conspiracies in order to frame them as outside the legitimate collective and weaken them in the elections.
5. Rewriting the history of the war – An attempt to absolve Netanyahu and the government of responsibility for the October 7th fiasco and the war's failures, while simultaneously presenting the war's achievements as a "total victory" and a personal success for Netanyahu.
6. The "Deep State" conspiracy – The claim that the judicial system, military, intelligence agencies, police, media, academia, and civil society are acting in secret coordination against Netanyahu and the Right as part of a "shadow government."
7. Delegitimization of the Israeli media – Portraying critical media outlets and journalists as liars, leftists, and traitors working against specific candidates or political camps while undermining trust in the free press.
8. The "ethnic demon" and religious war – Portraying the Left and the Center as a secular-Ashkenazi elite seeking to suppress Mizrahim and the religious and damage Israel’s Jewish character; Mizrahim who oppose the government are depicted as "useful idiots."
9. Violent nationalism as "quintessentially Israeli" – Framing incitement to violence and war crimes as a legitimate patriotic stance, while branding opponents as traitors or as people who are not "of Israel."
10. Election theft – Preemptively undermining the reliability of electoral mechanisms and laying the groundwork to claim the election was rigged or "stolen" if the results fail to meet a specific camp's expectations.
11. Distrust of election results in Arab society – Portraying polling stations in Arab areas as particularly susceptible to fraud, thereby justifying extreme oversight and creating a level of apprehension that could suppress Arab voter turnout.

Last May, we published “The False Narratives Playbook - Disinformation and Illegitimate Propaganda in Israel's 2026 Election.” It lists the narratives expected to dominate deceptive election campaigning in the coming months. The book is based on the monitoring, cataloging, and analysis of hundreds of hours of mainstream media broadcasts, and political speeches and statements, using "Subtext"—an AI and human analysis-based system developed by "The Seventh Eye."

Later, the months of June and July were examined. The analysis covered broadcasts from the five major Israeli television channels (Kan 11, Keshet 12, Reshet 13, Channel 14, and i24) between the hours of 5 and 11 P.M.

The analysis reveals that the narratives we identified were indeed clearly reflected in the channels' broadcasts—without exception. The analysis also shows that this trend is consistent: in comparing the two months, we found that the number of instances identified in June was nearly identical to the number found in July.

Plus, all 11 narratives we defined in the book appeared across all five channels (with the exception of the "election fraud in Arab society" narrative, which appeared only on i24). The leading narratives we found: the delegitimization of the opposition and the Arab community, Netanyahu standing above the law, the "Deep State" conspiracy, the spread of violent nationalism, and attacks on the media.

It was further found that Channel 14 leads the rest of the channels by a huge margin, both in the quantity of narratives and in their severity (each narrative was categorized according to four levels of severity: extreme, high, moderate, and low). Here, too, there’s a clear trend: the false and illegitimate narratives broadcast by Channel 14 accounted for more than half of the findings across all five channels during those two months.

After Channel 14, by far the most toxic channel is i24, followed in third place by the public broadcaster Kan 11, then Channel 13, and finally Channel 12, which was found to have spread the fewest false and invalid narratives. This trend held true across both months examined.

Peak Toxicity

The analysis also examined the most toxic program on each channel. On Channel 14, this program in June was "Seven," usually hosted by Netanyahu’s political advisor, Yaakov Bardugo along with Yehuda Schlesinger, who worked as a political correspondent for "Israel Hayom" during the period when it was nicknamed "Bibiton." In July, it was "Riklin & Co.," hosted by Shimon Riklin.

On the i24 channel, the most toxic program in June was "The Israelis," a panel program hosted by Ori Qual) while in July, it was "Weekend with Danielle Roth-Avneri."

On channels Kan 11, 12, and 13, the main news broadcast spread the harshest content; on Channel 13, the average harshness of narratives in the main newscast matched that of the program "Moriah and Berko."

This finding is especially worrying; a news broadcast is supposed to be the program most committed to factual, balanced, and reliable reporting, and certainly not a platform for false and illegitimate propaganda—even if it’s not always spread directly by the journalists themselves.

Below are several examples of common false and illegitimate narratives in television broadcasts.

On June 2, on his Channel 14 program “Sheva” ("Seven"), Yaakov Bardugo presented an example of history being rewritten to serve the Likud campaign:

“Had the views of Gadi Eisenkot and Benny Gantz prevailed, Hamas would have remained in Gaza. Hezbollah would have remained in Lebanon. Assad would be found in Syria. Iran would have been on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Had Gadi Eisenkot’s approach been adopted, the North would have been bombarded, the South would have been paralyzed, and Tel Aviv would have been almost crushed."

Beyond the dishonest manipulation involving the rewriting of the War Cabinet’s positions from the time the Blue and White party was part of the government, Bardugo also lies in the simplest and crudest manner: in actuality, the outcomes of the wars Netanyahu led after Blue and White’s departure include Hamas remaining in Gaza, Hezbollah remaining in Lebanon, Iran possessing ballistic missiles, and so on.

That same program also featured many examples of the delegitimization of the opposition. Not just harsh criticism but an attempt to cast them beyond the pale based on lies. For instance, this was said on July 1:

"He says, 'I will form a government with Ahmad Tibi, Arafat’s aide. I’ll repeat this 200 times, and with Mansour Abbas, a Muslim Brotherhood figure who did not condemn the October 7th massacre.' With this, says Yoram Cohen, we will build; with this, says Shaul Meridor, we will normalize. This is actually the alliance of the dishonest far-leftist, the dishonest Gadi Eisenkot, who yesterday opened Pandora’s box, transforming the State of Israel from a Jewish state into a 'state of all its citizens,' in partnership with those who wish to destroy us, including from within."

None of the phrases in the quote are accurate. In reality, Tibi was an official advisor to Arafat during the period when Israel recognized him as a legitimate leader and signed agreements with him; Abbas severed his party's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and condemned the massacre; Arab elected officials have no desire to "destroy us" and were viewed as worthy partners even by Netanyahu when he needed them to form a government; Eisenkot does not support the principle of a "state of all its citizens," and so on.

Another example of the delegitimization of the opposition could be found on News 12 on June 25:

"Our freedom of expression—we on the Right—is under attack. We have only ourselves, only social media. Now, the Left is trying to steal even this last, meager resource. They are flooding all those left-wing organizations with money. In contrast, their victims are private individuals who suddenly have to deal with legal expenses of hundreds of thousands of shekels."

In reality, there is no organized party effort to undermine the "freedom of expression of right-wingers." There are civic initiatives, from both the Left and the Right, that support lawsuits around online defamation. In fact, the only significant organized effort aimed at curtailing freedom of speech that is clearly politically motivated is the one launched by Likud Minister Nir Barkat, with a stated goal of targeting Channel 12 after a series of investigative reports it published regarding suspected corruption in government ministries held by the Likud.

Another example of the delegitimization of "the Left," portrayed as unworthy of being part of the government, could be found three days later on the Channel 13 program "Moriah and Berko":

"First of all, as you said, Arab parties cannot join a broad national government [...] 'national' also implies for this purpose that the Left is out, because that is not, so to speak, the 'national camp' as defined within our political system." "Moriah and Berko," News 13, June 28, 2026.

The channels also provided many examples of discourse characterized by violent nationalism and incitement to violence and war crimes. For instance, News 13 broadcast remarks by Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman, who declared that "we must flatten Dahiya right now and not stop until the last building there is brought down" (June 1). The i24 main news program aired a statement calling for Lebanon to be "burned" (June 17), and the program "Moriah and Berko" aired Yossi Dagan’s denial of the phenomenon of settler violence ("There is a cynical campaign here, funded by the European Union for years, called the settler violence campaign," June 30).

The campaign against the media continues as well—and not just on Channel 14. For instance, on i24’s 5 PM broadcast, in the middle of a discussion about the appointment of Netanyahu’s military secretary as head of the Mossad, it was noted that in "the media" (outside of channels i24 and 14) "they would finish a person off like that, drag him out to the media, to the town square, hang him, and that would be the end of it" (June 1).

Meanwhile, on the channel’s main newscast, it was possible to hear a hate-filled diatribe against "Guy Peleg and all the 'consciousness engineers' in the studios," about their "brainwashing the 'Kaplan Revolution' army, setting the Ayalon Highway on fire, and dragging an entire nation into a vortex of baseless hatred. While you were waging a political witch hunt, the enemy across the border sat there, took notes, identified the internal rift you had created, and slaughtered us" (June 29).

The channels also featured instances of delegitimizing equal rights for women ("They don't have to be together [...] they don't need to serve together in the same tank. What can you do?", i24), ethnic and religious incitement ("After you finish off the Ultra-Orthodox, you want to finish off Religious Zionism... after you finish off Religious Zionism, you'll finish off the traditionalists... after you finish off the traditionalists, you'll wipe out Judaism", i24), and the delegitimization of the Arab public and its elected representatives ("Goldknopf and Deri don't think it's permissible to invade and kill 368 IDF soldiers on October 7th. But Ayman Odeh does. But Ayman Odeh does," News 12).

Israeli television continued to promote conspiracy theories, including the false "traitors from within" blood libel. For instance, on June 17, the i24 channel aired remarks by Likud MK Amit Halevi, who repeated the false allegation ("One can put two and two together, and a Member of Knesset is allowed to do that in this situation"), while Channel 11 gave a platform to Likud MK Tally Gotliv, a leading figure among the conspiracy theorists, who repeated the false claim on the program "Kan BeShesh" on June 22: "They feared that the Prime Minister would save the South, deploy forces to the South and roll out operational and contingency plans as they were prepared to do and as was possible. This is mutiny and this is a coup."

On the i24 channel, we also encountered the false narrative about vote-rigging at Arab polling stations, courtesy of MK Zvi Sukkot from the Religious Zionists: "First of all, this has been going on for many years, and it was evident at polling stations in the Arab sector, where we saw fraud [...] We saw fraud there over the years at Arab polling stations, and the introduction of cameras reduced it, drastically reduced it" (June 22). It is worth noting that these claims are incorrect: past investigations have unequivocally determined that there is no unique phenomenon of vote-rigging in Arab areas.

A dismal, dangerous picture

An examination of television broadcasts during June and July, leading up to the October elections, reveals that the narratives described in the narratives book were indeed reflected extensively and consistently. A breakdown of narrative propagation by channel also shows a clear trend: across both months, Channel 14 led the other channels by a wide margin, while the ranking of the other channels remained identical.

This consistent finding reinforces our repeated arguments, which recently gained academic validation, that Channel 14 is not a journalistic outlet at all, not even a poor or corrupt one. Channel 14 is a different kind of platform, an anti-journalistic medium—a propaganda channel operating according to codes and values​​completely different from those that govern the world of journalism.

Channel 14 takes on the appearance and trappings of the journalism world, but consistently and comprehensively broadcasts political propaganda, hate speech, racism, and incitement, while waging a sustained, dishonest campaign against news channels and the journalists who broadcast on them.

להורדת הקובץ (PDF, 1MB)

The findings also highlight the weakness of other television channels, including i24, long considered the "little brother" of Channel 14; but even more significantly, the established channels, including the public broadcaster. Worse still, this false and illegitimate  propaganda shows up in the channels' news broadcasts (alongside the current affairs program "Moriah and Berko").

The findings paint a dismal and dangerous picture of how mainstream broadcast media serves politicians instead of the public and plays a central role in spreading flawed and false election propaganda narratives.

The dissemination of political propaganda, disinformation, manipulation, conspiracy theories, hate speech, racism, and incitement to violence is not journalism—it harms the public, especially during election periods, and, ironically and absurdly, undermines the very right of media outlets to exist.

Our recommendations for the media during the election period stand. We advise journalists to use the guide in the book to identify false, manipulative, or conspiratorial statements in order to avoid amplifying them and to help refute them.

Be meticulous about their news reporting and commentaries instead of relying blindly on press releases or briefings from stakeholders.

Significantly increase airtime for elected officials and election candidates who suffer from unequal media representation: representatives from Arab communities, women, and opposition representatives—groups that repeated studies have shown are consistently excluded from mainstream media broadcasts.

Refrain from presenting politically biased seat-projection polls (for example, displaying a map of political blocs while excluding Arab parties from those blocs).

Cover Israel’s political landscape around substantive issues, achievements, and future plans, and not through the exclusive prism of political intrigue (e.g., "Will you sit with the Arabs?"), which serves party campaigns instead of the public.

Refrain from inviting panelists who lack expertise in the subject being discussed. In the absence of a genuine expert, it is better to forgo coverage and not "balance" it with a commentator who’s not an expert—and certainly not a "commentator" with a hidden agenda.

Explicitly identify examples of illegitimate, manipulative propaganda (e.g., "of Israel," "traitors," "terrorist sympathizers") instead of presenting them as legitimate viewpoints, and refrain from inviting panelists who consistently use such expressions. This is not censorship—it is a professional decision to avoid amplifying lies and conspiracy theories.

Insist on validating and illustrating with examples any statements presented as self-evident truths. This makes it possible to expose them as selective representations or even outright lies.

Avoid presenting a false balance—not every topic involves two legitimate viewpoints warranting a "balanced" discussion. For instance, there is no "for or against" when it comes to terrorism, including Jewish terrorism, or around equal rights for women and the like.

Don’t accept expressions of hate speech, racism, and incitement to violence; they must be condemned, and interviewees who use such language should not be given airtime.

Don’t adopt self-serving terminology (such as "War of Revival" or "the October 7th event") without explicitly discussing its meaning.

During a broadcast, when a speaker alleges the existence of a "Deep State," the "fabrication of cases," or "selective enforcement," insist on specific evidence for their claims. Don’t accept general statements at face value as this propagates false conspiracy theories.

Differentiate between legitimate, well-reasoned criticism of a specific institution or figure and their portrayal as part of a coordinated, malicious system (a conspiracy).

Conspiracies that have already been debunked (for example, the "Spy from the South" plot) should be noted to demonstrate a consistent pattern of lies and conspiracy theories serving specific interests.

We advise media outlets and journalists under attack not to go on the defensive or attempt to refute the attack, as this just feeds the narrative. Instead, the recommendation is to consistently produce high-quality journalism.

Every time a spokesperson attacks "the media" in general terms, ask for a specific example and correct the record if that example is inaccurate.

Avoid inviting panelists who systematically use language that delegitimizes the media. This is not a matter of "presenting diverse viewpoints" but rather of providing a platform for structural incitement.

Be concerned about transparency around journalistic errors—acknowledging a specific mistake bolsters overall media credibility and diminishes the power of generalizations.

Conduct substantive discussions on the ideological, political, economic, and social agendas proposed by each party and candidate and on their past actions and plans rather than on their ethnic identity or political maneuvering.

Incitement to violence is not a legitimate position in public discourse and is prohibited by law—don’t invite anyone who expresses such views to participate in panels. Every such comment made during a live broadcast must be addressed immediately by clarifying that the remark is neither lawful nor legitimate. Silence is consent.

When covering international developments like international arrest warrants, explicitly link them to the "discourse of revenge" circulated by various spokespeople, including the highest-ranking political representatives.

Any call for special oversight of Arab polling stations must explicitly reference the 2019 incident and its consequences: voter suppression and riots. Any deployment of cameras, field operatives, or new technology at Arab polling stations must be independently covered—well before Election Day. Don’t frame this issue as a legitimate debate about electoral integrity—it’s racially motivated voter suppression propaganda.

Make sure there is significant and sustained coverage of voting within Arab society as an expression of democratic values, to preempt any future attempts to cast suspicion on it.