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Yair Lapid

If you think we’re too quiet, then be our megaphone

Netanyahu has worked to muffle Blue and White in traditional news channels, but today, every citizen is a digital media mogul

I want to remind you about something in this election campaign.

Benjamin Netanyahu has two newspapers working for him, he has his own TV station and has radio broadcasters who get their messaging directly from the Prime Minister’s close aide Natan Eshel. He has unlimited funds (although no-one is quite sure where they come from) and pours hundreds of millions of shekels into social networks. He has government ministers who kiss his feet without expressing a single opinion of their own.

He doesn’t give speeches and he doesn’t grant interviews. He’s in the bunker, but he’s built a megaphone. For twenty years he’s been building a huge, corrupt machine that works only for him. It’s a propaganda machine that spews out massive quantities of poison.

And despite all that he complains that the media is left wing, and he spends every day searching for someone by whom to be offended so he can claim he’s being persecuted.

Who is left to persecute him? Half of the media is paralyzed by fear of him and the other half works for him. He’s taken control of entire media outlets and then people say to those of us who oppose him “we can’t hear you.”

Blue and White will do everything it takes. You know me by now. We’ll go to every group, every cafe, every market, every shopping mall and every radio and television station to make our case. But that won’t be enough.

So to everyone who says they can’t hear us I say this: if you want to win, help. Faced with Netanyahu’s huge machine let’s bring a million small and rapid and smart machines of our own. Faced with the millions he spends on Facebook each of you has friends, neighbors, WhatsApp groups.

If you hear Gabi Ashkenazi on the radio, circulate it to your friends. If you see Benny Gantz’s speech, post it online. If you hear Bogie Ya’alon, tell everyone about it. We’ve got the power and it’s in our hands. It’s a whole new world. Today every citizen with a smartphone is a media outlet and everyone with Facebook can shape reality.

If you feel we’re not being heard, you can change that. Do that and we’ll win.

About the Author
Yair Lapid is the former Prime Minister of Israel and currently the Leader of the Opposition in Israel.
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