Chairman of the Central Elections Committee (CEC) Judge Uzi Fogelman banned on Tuesday the broadcast of a stand-up program in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was slated to participate, claiming that it was “election propaganda.”
Netanyahu’s nine-minute segment was to be aired later in the day on Channel 13 “Stand-Up Nation.”
The petition, filed by Shachar Ben Meir, who has filed a series of petitions against Netanyahu, claimed that the prime minister’s appearance, three weeks before the election, means the broadcast will be used as election propaganda.
Fogelman noted that although there are no statements in the segment calling to vote for Netanyahu and the Likud, “a message of propaganda is not just a direct message.”
Netanyahu’s Likud party stated it will appeal the decision to “censor Netanyahu.”
“We are being censored, while the caressing interviews of all the other politicians on talk shows like Ofira and Berko or the political propaganda in ‘Eretz Nehedereth’ [satire show] are not being censored. There can be no one law for the Likud and another law for the rest!” the party stated.
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