Channel 14 provoked outrage on Wednesday when it aired a segment that examined the alleged relationship between political outlook and victims of the devastating October 7 attack, including a chart that indicated left-wingers were ten times more likely to be killed or kidnapped.
Hosts Shimon Riklin and Erel Segal presented the segment on the right-wing, pro-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu channel, under the caption: "Does political stance save lives?"
They interviewed researcher Liad Levi about his examination of the devastating onslaught led by Hamas
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,..., in which some 1,200 people were killed and 252 seized as hostages, in relation to how the victims voted.
Levi said he examined the voting patterns of 40 communities situated within 10 kilometers of Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
and found a ratio of two left-leaning communities (defined by 70% or more of the votes going to left-wing parties) for every right-wing one. He didn’t specify which parties were categorized as left wing.
Based on those figures, Levi drew up a chart of the number of killed or kidnapped on October 7, concluding that one in 35 residents of communities that voted "left" were killed or kidnapped, compared to only one in 335 residents of communities that voted "right." The figures, he said, showed there were ten times as many left-wing victims as right-wing ones.
"The question of the research was, Did one’s political outlook in the Envelope [i.e., the Gaza border towns] save you, or cause you damage, or give you an advantage in the October 7 attack," said Riklin.
"The mass of those killed... sits in what seems to be communities that voted left," responded Levi.
The distance of the various communities from the Gaza border had no effect on this, he claimed.
Levi also said that in right-leaning communities where only a few people were killed, those deaths came while fighting the terrorists, asserting that "the numbers also pointed to the ’quality of the death,’ how terrible the deaths were."
Later in the same segment, those in the studio discussed if political leanings may have affected the effectiveness of the security squads in the communities that were attacked, or influenced the "understanding of the enemy" in the communities.
The Hostages and Families forum said in a response it was "expressing shock at the report tonight on Channel 14. This is a manipulative, divisive
...politicians call things
divisivewhen when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never
divisive,they're
principled...
, false, and blood-letting report."
"The attempt to present the citizens of Israel who were massacred, murdered, and kidnapped in the October disaster as based on political affiliation is a wrongful act that harms the foundation of our national resilience, the families of the murdered and the fallen, and national solidarity vis-à-vis the hostages," the forum said in a statement.
Reporter Nadav Eyal noted on X that "geography, the Hamas plan, the IDF’s response, and a thousand other parameters are critical" factors in the outcome of the terror attack. He said it should be obvious that the research is "poor, cheap, bad."
Following the criticism, Segal defended the item, writing on X "it is not a poll or research by Channel 14. We interviewed Dr. Liad Levi, a physicist, who did research and found clear statistical data that demands review in order to learn for next time. The future."
"Anyone who watched or will watch the item will see... that it was taken out of context," he wrote.
On the morning of October 7, Hamas led some 3,000 forces of Evil who burst through the border with Gaza and rampaged through southern Israel. They overran communities in the border area as local security teams made up of residents fought back despite being massively outnumbered. Many security squad members were killed in the fighting.
Channel 14’s fervent backing for Netanyahu and his government has led some to term the station’s content "propaganda."
The conservative network, owned by Israeli-Russian billionaire Yitzhak Mirilashvili and sometimes likened to the US’s Fox News, has been embroiled in previous controversies.
In August 2023, an anchor drew fire for showing sympathy toward Yigal Amir, the jugged
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
assassin of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. A month earlier, a panelist on the network called for Amir’s release from prison.
Channel 14 was founded as Channel 20 in 2014, winning a government tender to establish a "Jewish Heritage Channel." It was barred from airing any news broadcasts and was fined multiple times for repeatedly breaking that rule. In 2016 it was granted the right to air 90 minutes a day of news but continued to violate its bylaws by regularly exceeding the limit.