[mynameisnoone]

Apartheid South Africa also tried to ban news media. It's a sign of extreme desperation and signals political vulnerability. Hopefully, Israel will get elections soon, and center- or left-leaning coalition government will pursue different foreign and military policies that a significant majority of Israelis prefer over the absurdity of the militarists and militant settlers.

https://truthout.org/articles/media-and-the-end-of-apartheid...

EDIT: Haaretz is a good and honest news source that has been extremely critical of the current leadership. Also recommended documentary film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gatekeepers_(film)

[flanked-evergl]

Nearly every democratic country has previously or is currently censoring the media in some ways, including the US[1] and EU[2]. Single factor analysis is one of the worst kinds of analysis. If we only consider this one factor, then there is basically no country that is not like Apartheid South Africa. Apartheid South Africa was not exceptional or notable because it did what nearly every other country has or is currently still doing, i.e. censoring media. It was notable because people of specific races had fewer legal rights than others.

Furthermore, as far as I'm aware, the majority of Israelis want the IDF to go into Raffah[3] and are not opposed to the attemts to eliminate Hamas.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship

[2]: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-rt-sputnik-eu-access-bans-pro...

[3]: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/poll-75-of-jewi...

[dunekid]

I am not sure how many people were surveyed and what were the questions in these. I am reminded of this from Yes, Prime Minister https://youtu.be/ahgjEjJkZks?si=_6nlxJ1okysqH07U

[harimau777]

I think that most people would argue that past censorship by the US was a violation of democratic principles.