Ynet Gives Retired Justice Meltzer a Stage to Defend the 0-11 Ruling, Two Weeks Before the Vote

At the legal panel of the 'People of the State' conference, organized by ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth, retired Deputy Supreme Court President Hanan Meltzer said he does not regret the 2020 '0 against 11' ruling that allowed Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government. 'I'm not sorry I ruled according to the law,' he said. The remarks came roughly two weeks before the elections.

The ynet headline presents his words as holding 'even after the judicial overhaul,' and calls that overhaul a 'coup.' That is an editorial choice, not a quotation from the panel. An elected government's reform was labeled before the first speaker reached the microphone, and the question Meltzer was answering arrived with its verdict attached. This is interpretation, but it rests on the wording of the headline itself.

The same panel gave a second message. Attorney Dina Zilber said: 'After the legal system, they are trying to narrow the power of the media as well.' The speaker is describing a threat to the media from inside a venue owned by a media house. A third panelist, attorney Raz Nizri, also spoke, but the source text breaks off mid-quote, so his words cannot be cited here.

## A debate about power, run by those who hold it

Meltzer is entitled to defend his ruling, and fidelity to law is a legitimate position. The issue is the structure around him. A former senior justice defends a decision that shaped how an elected government was formed. A lawyer presents media regulation as the next stage of an attack on the system. Both sit on a stage built by the media house that covers that government, with the campaign in its final stretch. Nothing in the reported material shows a speaker from the camp that drove the reform.

That is what agenda-setting looks like in practice. It requires no censorship and no false statement. It needs only the choice of who is invited, what the headline calls the reform, and which question is treated as settled. The legal system and a leading newspaper can each cite the other's seriousness, and the audience hears one account of legitimacy from two institutions that share an interest in it.

The point for the right is practical. Influence is exercised at events like this one, by those who own the stage, write the headline and choose the panel. A camp that wins elections but does not own venues, platforms or networks will keep finding that the terms of the debate were fixed before it was asked to speak.