The Left's 'Poison Machine': How the Media Spoke and Wrote About Netanyahu and His Government

The report, produced on October 10, 2026, examined the period between July 13 and October 10. It is based on 1,861 articles about Netanyahu from Israeli news websites (from August 27 onward, when site data became available), on 1,666 broadcasts and articles that were promoted and analyzed, on news feeds on social networks, and on 401 posts and statements against Netanyahu by politicians, former senior officials and public figures, 359 of them from the opposition. The report measures three separate things: the tone of coverage, regardless of who is speaking; the stance of the media outlets themselves, in their own words and not those of quoted sources; and what anchors, reporters, newsreaders and writers said and wrote, separately from guests.

The phrase 'poison machine' was used between October 6 and 10 by Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Golan and Naftali Bennett, and in all three cases the words were directed at Netanyahu's camp and his supporters in the media. The Truth Lens data shines a spotlight on the other side: the voice of the media outlets themselves. The central finding of the report, with medium confidence: the media outlets cover Netanyahu in a tone that is far more negative than positive, but the stance against him in the voice of the media outlets themselves is concentrated in a few outlets, led by Haaretz, ynet and Channel 13.

In the Voice of the Media Outlets Themselves

In broadcasts and articles analyzed, the report found 240 statements against Netanyahu in the voice of the media outlets themselves. Each one was checked against the transcript, and in this check about half of the original assignments were corrected. Channel 13 leads with 72 statements, about half of them disputed factual claims. After it come ynet (50), Haaretz (39), Maariv (24), News 12 (21) and Israel Hayom (20). The media outlets were sampled in different periods, so the comparison between them is partial. Among the items with the most statements: Chapter 9 of the investigation 'The Source' on Network 13 ('The Shin Bet in Netanyahu's Service'), with 14; a column by Yoana Gonen in Haaretz, with 11; and the film 'Awakening' on Network 13, with 9. In total, 1,226 statements against Netanyahu were counted in broadcasts and newspapers, most from guests and quoted sources.

On news websites, 138 articles, 7 percent of the articles about Netanyahu, took a stance against him in the words of the media outlets themselves, in opinion pieces or in charged framing, versus 27 in his favor. About half of them, 66, in Haaretz, where 37 percent of articles about Netanyahu take a stance against him. After it come ynet (25), Maariv and Israel Hayom (10 each). On Channel 14's website there is not a single such article, and there are 8 in his favor. When combining the two measures, Haaretz leads with 105 items against Netanyahu in the voice of the media, followed by ynet and Yedioth (75), Channel 13 (72), Maariv (34), Israel Hayom (30), News 12 (24) and The Seventh Eye (23).

The report also measures the bias of the voice of each media outlet on all subjects, on a scale between -1 (all position statements favor the opposition) and +1 (all favor the coalition). Haaretz stands at -0.74, Channel 13 at -0.73, Maariv at -0.56, ynet at -0.53, Israel Hayom at -0.45 and News 12 at -0.44. i24NEWS leans slightly toward the coalition (+0.36), and Channel 14 leans toward it clearly (+0.93), without a single statement against Netanyahu in the channel's voice.

We checked the examples below ourselves against the original article or broadcast. All are from journalists and writers of the media outlets themselves, not from interviewees. Alongside some of the examples is an evidence card as it appears in the Truth Lens software: the quote, the speaker and their position, the classification and the context. The transcription in the cards is automatic, so there may be single-word errors.

The government wants the IDF to fail. Whoever leads it is working toward anarchy, displacement, expulsion, genocide.

Nahum Barnea, senior columnist for Yedioth Ahronoth, in the column 'They Won't Really Investigate,' ynet, October 5, 2026

The column at ynet deals with Jewish rioters in Judea and Samaria and measures that Barnea says were taken from the IDF to act against them, and Barnea does not call Netanyahu by name. 'The government' is Netanyahu's government, and 'whoever leads it' is, in plain language, the prime minister, though the phrase could also be read as whoever leads policy in Judea and Samaria. Truth Lens classified the sentence as delegitimization: Barnea attributes to the government the desire for the army to fail, and to whoever leads it a striving for expulsion and genocide.

And above all: this is the government of the massacre of October 7, the greatest disaster in the country's history

Editorial, Haaretz, 'Let's Save the Home,' October 2, 2026

The editorial is the newspaper's official position. The editorial does not state that the government carried out the massacre, and later in the sentence it attributes the disaster to years of denying the conflict and ignoring the prime minister's warnings. But the epithet 'the government of the October 7 massacre' links the massacre to the government itself. In the same editorial the editorial also wrote about 'a chain of corruption that is rampant and criminal norms.' We found the sentence through manual reading of the editorial.

The document Netanyahu published is rife with lies and distortions. Now they are being exposed

Headline of the investigation by Ronen Bergman and Yuval Rogovitz in the magazine 7 Days, ynet, October 9, 2026

The headline is in the voice of the media outlet, and it states that the 55-page document the prime minister published is rife with lies and distortions.

That's a sentence that is simply false, it's a fabrication.

Michael Shams, reporter, in the central broadcast of News 13, September 28, 2026

Shams read a sentence from the prime minister's statement, stated in his voice that it is false, and added that Ronen Bar and former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi 'didn't exchange a word all night.' To view the News 13 broadcast, from minute 08:24.

Netanyahu violated the election law here, the IDF really doesn't like that, and as evidence, not a single senior IDF official accompanied Netanyahu's visit to the Tel Nof airbase ...

Or Heller, military correspondent for News 13, in the central broadcast, September 29, 2026

To view the News 13 broadcast, from minute 07:16. The military correspondent stated as a fact, in his voice, that the prime minister violated the election law. Transcription note: the automatic transcription wrote 'tzahal,' 'mikfirei' and 'telnof'.

On News 12, reporter Barak Ravid said in the weekend broadcast of September 26: 'Netanyahu is the only one not willing to establish a state commission of inquiry, maybe he knows why.' To view the News 12 broadcast, from minute 06:29. Transcription note: the automatic transcription wrote 'vaanat chekira hamlaachtit.'

The mobilization of the secret police on behalf of the leader is, as we know, a defining characteristic of thriving democracies.

Yoana Gonen, columnist at Haaretz, in the election column 'Flowing to the Polls,' October 1, 2026

In the column Gonen writes with sarcasm and presents the Shin Bet as a secret police mobilized 'on behalf of the leader.' A paragraph earlier she wrote: 'At the election headquarters of Likud this week three devoted grassroots activists joined: the Shin Bet, Mossad and the Police.' Truth Lens classified the sentence as delegitimization, one of only three it found in the voice of the media outlets. In our check, the direct target of the sarcasm is the Shin Bet and its head, and Netanyahu is presented as the one on whose behalf it mobilized. The second of the three is Barnea's column. The third, at Haaretz, turned out in our check to be a response by an anonymous reader below an opinion piece, which the software mistakenly attributed to the writer of the opinion piece, so we did not include it.

He's not at all eager to end the war. He is eager to go on saying we're being attacked on 7 fronts.

Nehama Duak, columnist, Israel Hayom, October 3, 2026

The article was published under the headline 'Netanyahu's Transparent Deception Attempt Just Before the Elections.' Also the military analyst of the newspaper, Yoav Limor, wrote on October 1, in an article about the warning the prime minister issued before the elections, that 'Netanyahu and the Defense Minister's decision to do so was, therefore, political,' and in the same column: 'The warnings may be good for mandates, but bad for public health.' To Yoav Limor's column at Israel Hayom.

In Maariv, in a news article by Anna Breski and Avi Ashkenazi and not in an opinion piece, the headline is 'The Report Was Already on Our Desk: Netanyahu Admits to an Aviation Lapse,' and in the body of the article it says: 'Netanyahu's decision is too little and too far from the serious incident.' To the article in Maariv. And in Haaretz, military analyst Amotz Harel wrote on October 9, in the subheading of his article on the state of emergency in the various sectors: '...and it's hard to shake the impression that this serves the prime minister.' To Amotz Harel's article in Haaretz.

Tone of Coverage

Forty-five percent of the articles about Netanyahu on news websites (841 out of 1,861) reflect him in a negative light, 12 percent (228) in a positive light, and the rest (792) are neutral. Site data only exists from August 27 onward.

According to the report, the difference between media outlets is the significant finding: at Haaretz 69 percent of coverage is negative and 3 percent positive, at ynet 53 percent and 5 percent, at Maariv 52 percent and 13 percent, at Kan 54 percent and 6 percent, and at Israel Hayom 48 percent and 12 percent. On the other hand, on Channel 14's website 22 percent of coverage is negative and 33 percent positive, and on Channel 7 it is 20 percent and 17 percent.

The report itself qualifies: negative coverage in itself does not amount to an influence effort. Bad news reported as such is journalism, and most negative articles are reports of criticism from others, of scandals and of events. Influence effort, according to the report, is measured in stance, framing and the voice of the media outlets themselves, so the data in the previous section is the main point.

Politicians in the Studios

Alongside the voice of the media are the voices of those they invite and quote. The report examined 401 posts and statements against Netanyahu by politicians, former senior officials and public figures. 359 of them by opposition politicians and parties, 121 on their official accounts and 238 in broadcasts and newspapers. 287 of those (80 percent) are criticism, 40 are personal attacks and 32 are delegitimization. No incitement was found.

Delegitimization is concentrated among Gadi Eisenkot (10 out of 133 items), Yair Golan (9 out of 49) and Gilad Kariv (5 out of 18), and after them Moshe (Bogi) Yaalon (3) and Ehud Barak (2). Among Bennett (30 items) and Liberman (29), no delegitimization was found, only criticism and occasional personal attacks. The count is by items, so a statement that was posted on multiple networks or rebroadcast again is counted more than once.

Nine quotes by politicians and public figures that made air and press we verified word-for-word against the source. The media outlets chose to raise them, but they do not contain the position of the editorial board, and in four of them the person who brought the words did so to criticize or mock them.

Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Yashar party, was interviewed on September 26 on 'Meet the Press' on News 12 and spoke about the Qatari money transferred to Gaza. According to him, in 2019 the head of the Shin Bet raised a red flag about the fact that the military wing of Hamas was receiving the money, 'and Netanyahu decides not to.' When the interviewer asked for clarification, he said:

This is behavior that is on the verge of embezzlement and betrayal ... a prime minister who knows the money is being transferred, the money we earmarked for citizens, is going to the military wing and doesn't stop it, that's between embezzlement and betrayal, it needs to be looked into

Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Yashar party, in an interview on 'Meet the Press,' News 12, September 26, 2026

To view the News 12 weekend broadcast, from minute 15:30. Three dots replace two words that the automatic transcription mangled and the interviewer's question 'of Netanyahu's?' Eisenkot did not state that Netanyahu betrayed: he spoke of behavior 'on the verge' and said 'it needs to be looked into.' Transcription note: in the broadcast transcription it was written 'between a word and betrayal,' and according to the previous sentence by Eisenkot himself the words are 'between embezzlement and betrayal.'

On September 28, ynet published Eisenkot's response to a statement in which Netanyahu accused Ronen Bar of 'crimes':

He knows he is responsible for twenty years of policy, responsible for strengthening Hamas, responsible for the failure and disaster of 7/10. He is afraid, he is a liar and above all he is dangerous to the State of Israel.

Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Yashar party, in a response published in an article by Itamar Eichner, ynet, September 28, 2026

To the article at ynet. Ten days later, on October 8, Haaretz published Eisenkot's response to an interview by Avi Gil for Israel Hayom:

Netanyahu's culture of lies is tearing apart and endangering Israel

Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Yashar party, in an article in Haaretz, October 8, 2026

To the article in Haaretz. The article does not indicate where Eisenkot said the words.

On October 1, ynet published an opinion column by Boaz Hatzni, 'Pyromaniacs exist on both the right and the left.' Hatzni criticizes the extremist rhetoric on both sides in it, and presents among others the words of Yair Golan and the words of Ram Ben Barak, about which he wrote that they were said 'just last week':

Netanyahu is the greatest existential threat to Israel

Yair Golan, head of a party and former deputy chief of staff, as quoted in an article by Boaz Hatzni, ynet, October 1, 2026

The greatest enemy of Israel is Netanyahu

Ram Ben Barak, former deputy chief of Mossad, as quoted in an article by Boaz Hatzni, ynet, October 1, 2026

To Boaz Hatzni's column at ynet. The column does not indicate where the words were said, and in Golan's words also not when, and they do not contain ynet's position: Hatzni presents them to condemn them.

On News 13, on October 3, former Defense Minister and former IDF Chief of Staff Bogi Yaalon was interviewed for the program 'Moriah and Barko.' The interviewer asked how he explains Netanyahu still being strong, and Yaalon replied that Netanyahu has abilities. When asked which abilities, he said:

Even the head of a crime gang ... otherwise he doesn't survive. And in this case he uses all means to survive, to lie, to deceive, to blame everyone else, and he doesn't take responsibility.

Bogi Yaalon, former Defense Minister and former IDF Chief of Staff, in an interview for 'Moriah and Barko,' News 13, October 3, 2026

To view the interview on News 13, from minute 51:08. Yaalon did not call Netanyahu the head of a crime gang, but compared his way of surviving to that of a crime boss. Three dots replace several words that the automatic transcription mangled and that cannot be recovered with certainty, and the word 'okay?'

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said on September 29 in an interview for 'Six with Oded Ben Ami' on News 12:

I have been warning for a long time that Netanyahu is preparing the possibility even not only in the arena with Iran also in Judea and Samaria also in Gaza also in Ramtha Nabatiyeh so that it will be a distance of a match... Ignition to ignite it if necessary five days before the elections

Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister, in an interview for 'Six with Oded Ben Ami,' News 12, September 29, 2026

Channel 14 rebroadcast the segment again on October 3 in the program 'The Patriots' with Yinon Magal, to mock Barak. To the segment on Channel 14, from minute 28:12. Barak presented the words as a warning, not as an established fact. Transcription note: four words corrected that the automatic transcription mangled (shnetnahu, nvatiyah, mehtzitah, lehatzit), and three dots replace one incomplete word.

On October 8, ynet reported on the conviction of M.K. Ofer Kassif (Hadash) of assaulting a police officer. According to the article, Kassif said to reporters before the decision was published:

... a camp that presents a real alternative, to the government of murder and therefore they also persecute us and want to silence us.

M.K. Ofer Kassif (Hadash), in comments to reporters published at ynet, October 8, 2026

To the article at ynet. Kassif did not mention Netanyahu by name: the epithet 'government of murder' is directed at the incumbent government.

On Kan 11, on September 29, in the program 'From the Other Side with Guy Zahr,' a broadcast of an archive segment from 2020: a speech by economist Yaron Zelyka, former Comptroller of the State, at protests at Balfour. The program presented it to mock Zelyka, not as the position of the station:

... and pathological lying combined personal corruption and yes serious mental disorders Mr. Netanyahu I accuse you of fascism

Yaron Zelyka, economist and former Comptroller of the State, in a speech from 2020 broadcast in 'From the Other Side with Guy Zahr,' Kan 11, September 29, 2026

To the YouTube segment, from minute 6:41. The quote begins in the middle of a sentence, because its beginning cannot be recovered from the automatic transcription with sufficient certainty. The words were said in 2020, not during the current election period.

What Opposition Leaders Are Talking About

We checked all posts on the official accounts of opposition leaders and their parties that the Truth Lens software monitors, from September 10 to October 10: Gadi Eisenkot and the Yashar party, Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett, Yair Golan and the Democrats, Mansour Abbas and the Ra'am. 388 different posts were found, and a post that appeared on multiple networks is counted once. Each post was classified by its main thrust: attack on Netanyahu, on the government, on the coalition or on Likud; a program, policy or vision; or other content, such as holiday greetings, condolences and campaign events. A second reviewer went through the classification of each account.

The result: 106 posts, 27 percent, attacked Netanyahu and his government. Only 24, 6 percent, presented a program, policy or vision. For every post that presented a program there were more than four posts of attack. For Gadi Eisenkot, head of Yashar, 38 percent of the posts attacked Netanyahu and his government, and 8 percent presented a program. For the Democrats 39 percent versus 6 percent, for Yair Lapid 30 percent versus 3 percent, for Yair Golan 30 percent versus 12 percent, and for Naftali Bennett 19 percent versus 11 percent.

On Networks

On social media and websites, the report counted 1,958 posts and articles against Netanyahu in 90 days, and 100,655,614 views on posts against him. The peak was in the week that began September 20, with 517 items, and in the week after that 474 items were counted.

Most of the items came from regular users (1,161). After them, influencers above the follower threshold (272), anonymous political pages (253), articles from news websites (138) and official accounts of parties and politicians (76). 52 items were posted on accounts that the software suspects are bots, by a score of 50 or above or manual marking, and one more in the gray area of partial bot signs.

Views are highly concentrated. One post, from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, carries 56,800,000 views, 56 percent of all views. About 93 percent of views are in posts that are not in Hebrew, mostly on foreign accounts, and posts in Hebrew collected 7,079,102 views. In foreign media, Al Jazeera (40 items, 4 against, 14,090,770 views) and Turkish media close to the government (5 out of 6 against him) stand out.

The report also examined pages on networks that present themselves as news, and many of them are not recognized media outlets. In the table of pages with 8 items or more about Netanyahu, 9 pages took a stance against him in 66 items in total: 16 on the page of The Seventh Eye and 50 on eight other pages, most of which are not recognized media outlets. One of them took a stance against Netanyahu in all 19 of his items. On the other hand, 8 pages took a stance in his favor in 37 items.

The Same Message, in the Studio and on the Network

On October 10, Naftali Bennett appeared on the program 'Meeting with Rony Kuban' on Kan 11, the public broadcasting station's channel. Kuban showed him names and faces and asked for his response. When it came to Yair Netanyahu, the son of the prime minister, Bennett said:

About him I will speak because he is completely active, I think he is a despicable person, standing next to his father at the head of a terrible poison machine, that is tearing apart Israel

Naftali Bennett, former Prime Minister, in 'Meeting with Rony Kuban,' Kan 11, October 10, 2026

Bennett added that it is a 'machine that turned Benny Gantz into a quasi-Iranian agent, a machine that will not shy away from anything,' and about the son of the prime minister he said: 'and I hope very soon that he will be thrown in the garbage can of history' (according to Kan 11's subtitles). Kuban asked him to explain what the 'poison machine' is, and Bennett replied:

In the end it is a small group of the closest advisors, all of these who are paid a salary by Qatar ... who see every day an opportunity to inject poison into the minds of Israeli citizens, all with the direction of Netanyahu himself

Naftali Bennett, in 'Meeting with Rony Kuban,' Kan 11, October 10, 2026

According to him, they are 'streaming it simultaneously to Bardogo, Yinon Magal, to Channel 14.' About ten minutes later Bennett also spoke about Defense Minister Amichay Shikli:

Terrible what this machine did to Elkin, and what others do to Shikli, whom I don't like, but you shouldn't touch his children, you shouldn't touch children and family

Naftali Bennett, in 'Meeting with Rony Kuban,' Kan 11, October 10, 2026

To the episode of 'Meeting with Rony Kuban' on Kan 11. Thus, ten minutes after he called the son of the prime minister 'a despicable person,' and justified speaking about him by saying he is 'completely active,' Bennett said 'you shouldn't touch children and family.' Yair Netanyahu is not an elected official. The interview is not mentioned in the Truth Lens report. The quotes were verified against two separate transcriptions of the broadcast, and the words 'paid a salary by Qatar' were corrected from the automatic transcription.

In this broadcast 'poison machine' is Bennett's epithet for Netanyahu's camp. Four days earlier, on October 6, the same phrase was used by two opposition leaders. Eisenkot, in a response published at ynet: 'Yinon Magal's horror show is yet another low of Netanyahu's poison machine.' To the article at ynet. And Golan, in a post on networks: 'Yinon Magal is the face of Netanyahu's distorted and immoral poison machine.' To Yair Golan's video on TikTok. Truth Lens classified both statements as personal attacks.

For activist Ami Dror, who has approximately 12,200 followers on Instagram, the messages are sharper. On October 8 he wrote:

Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, Smotrich, you need to be brought to trial for aiding in the murder of hostages! You betrayed Israel!

Ami Dror, protest activist, on Instagram, October 8, 2026

To the post of Ami Dror. The next day he wrote that 'Netanyahu is not the first leader to endanger his people because of a disturbed mental state and a feeling of blind superiority,' and compared him to 'Nicholas II, Hitler and Mussolini, who were trapped in delusions of grandeur that destroyed their countries.' On that same day he called Netanyahu 'the narcissistic psychopath' and again and again 'the Hamas funder.' He also wrote: 'Must pursue them everywhere! Netanyahu and the government of 'die but don't enlist' are dangerous to Israel!' To the posts.

On October 10, Dror called on his followers to attend a conference in Tel Aviv of what he called the 'Die But Don't Enlist' party headed by 'the Hamas funder.' In the same post he wrote 'without violence. Listening to police and security instructions,' and also: 'Must pursue the Qatari agents and the 'Hamas is an Asset' criminals everywhere!' To the post. These videos were viewed between 720 and 7,766 times each.

The messages repeat. Qatar: Bennett speaks on Kan 11 about advisors 'paid a salary by Qatar,' Dror writes about 'Qatari agents' and about 'the Hamas funder,' Eisenkot said on News 12 that a prime minister who knows Qatari money is going to the military wing of Hamas and doesn't stop it acts 'between embezzlement and betrayal,' and among the recurring patterns among political opponents the report lists the phrases 'Qatar's envoy' and 'his Qatari agents.' And the danger: Eisenkot called Netanyahu 'dangerous to the State of Israel,' and Dror wrote that Netanyahu and his government are 'dangerous to Israel.' Those same phrases repeat among politicians, including in an interview broadcast on the public broadcasting station, and among a protest activist. This is a recurring message, not evidence of coordination: Truth Lens found no coordinated network, and we have no evidence of coordination between the speakers.

What the Data Don't Show

The report found no incitement in any of the items checked. The data also do not show that all media outlets take a stance against Netanyahu: only 7 percent of the articles about him on news websites take such a stance in the voice of the outlet, and it is concentrated in a few outlets, led by Haaretz, ynet and Channel 13. Explicit delegitimization in the voice of media outlets was found only 3 times (2 at Haaretz, 1 at ynet), and in our check one of them turned out to be a reader response. Most statements against Netanyahu are position, claim or framing, not a denial of his legitimacy. The media outlets were sampled in different periods (News 12 from August, News 13 from mid-September, the press from late September), so the comparison between them is partial, and the confidence level of the central finding is medium. And on the other side of the map, Channel 14 leans clearly toward the coalition (+0.93), without a single statement against Netanyahu in the channel's voice.

From the Truth Lens software