Netanyahu's happiness industry
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the opening of the Knesset's 2016 winter session was focused on the wonderful situation of Israeli citizens while ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and growing disparities within Israeli society.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech Oct. 31 to mark the opening of the Knesset's winter session will be remembered for the headline it produced: The prime minister plans to "rehabilitate" the Israel Broadcasting Authority — that is, to cancel the scheduled January inauguration of the new Israel Broadcasting Corporation, which was designed to replace the Israel Broadcasting authority. The speech set another milestone in the ongoing public and media uproar over the future of public broadcasting in Israel.
Yet the statement describing his intentions on public broadcasting barely took up 20 seconds from a speech that lasted about half an hour. Were the broadcasting issue not such a hot public potato, the speech probably could have used a better title such as "Why are Israelis so happy?"
