Likud petition accepted: Bennett forced to remove segments from election video
In the video, Naftali Bennett mentions that soldiers have been fighting for months while Haredim evade service, accompanied by footage of troops. The Likud party claimed this constitutes the illegal use of IDF assets in election propaganda.
The Chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Judge Noam Sohlberg, ordered on Wednesday that the Chairman of the 'Bechad' party, Naftali Bennett, remove video segments showing soldiers in operational activity, as well as an IDF artillery piece, from an election propaganda video.
In the video, Bennett mentions, among other things, that soldiers have been fighting for long months, while Haredim evade military service. When he speaks about the fighting soldiers, those same clips appear in the background. The Likud party claimed that this constitutes the use of public assets and the IDF in election propaganda, in violation of the law.
The Chairman of the Elections Committee determined that the segments in question contain assets of the IDF and link the army and its activity to the messages of the video, noting that this is not a marginal part of the content. Since the use is limited to those specific segments intended for visual illustration, it was decided that they must be removed from the video rather than banning the entire clip.
This concerns a 23-second video in which Bennett attacks Haredi evasion ("An evader will not receive a shekel from the state. Not a Zionist, not on my dime"), and alongside his words, about 4.5 seconds of footage of soldiers in operational activity were integrated — including a segment where an artillery piece is seen firing — accompanied by the slogan "Together we will draft everyone".
Sohlberg determined that the familiar sight of IDF uniforms and weapons creates an identification in the voter's mind between the army and the party's propaganda messages. Thus, section 2a of the law was violated, which is intended to maintain the apolitical nature of the public service and to keep "the people's army out of the political arena".
In his decision, Sohlberg emphasized that although the soldier clips are short, this is not a marginal part:
"The entire video lasts 23 seconds, meaning this is not a marginal part. In order to illustrate the statements about drafting to the IDF, there is no need to show a moment where an artillery piece is firing, without soldiers in the picture".
He added a broader recommendation ahead of the election campaign, in which the issue of drafting is expected to take a central place: "It is recommended to exercise extreme caution regarding the use of visual components that include soldiers, uniforms, weapons — which in many cases could amount to prohibited use of IDF assets".
