On Wednesday, a complaint was filed with Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit against Camil Fuchs, a statistician and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Statistics at the School of Mathematical Sciences of Tel Aviv University, who follows the elections on Israel’s Channel 13.
Attorney Shachar Ben Meir demanded that Mandelblit launch an investigation against Prof. Fuchs and Channel 13, threatening that if his complaint is not accepted, he would take it to the High Court of Justice.
Ben Meir claimed that Fuchs violated the Propaganda Law, which prohibits the publication or broadcast of a poll on Election Day. On Tuesday at 8 PM, two hours before the polls closed, Fuchs dropped a bomb during a live studio segment when he said, “In all my years I haven’t seen such dramatic results as in this survey. Dramatic and decisive.”
Needless to say, Fuchs’s statement ignited heated debates on social media, with many concluding that Likud succeeded in deciding the election, meaning the right-wing bloc won at least 61 seats. Tweets citing Fuchs were inferring that Netanyahu finally had 62 seats or even more and that, finally, after two years of a tied war, one of the sides defeated the other.
Journalist Ben Caspit tweeted following Fuchs’s remarks that “the scandalous leaks from Fuchs’s direction that this is an evening of a dramatic decision is a form of vote-suppression.”
Meanwhile, the true election results show nothing particularly dramatic, and no clear decision was reached between the right-wing bloc and the left-wing bloc, as Fuchs falsely promised.
As of Thursday morning, with 98% of the votes counted, there are several changes in the size of the various parties, but the blocs remain as they were, in a draw (according to our friends at Dicta.org.il:
PRO-NETANYAHU – 51
Likud – 30
Shas – 8
United Torah Judaism – 7
Religious Zionism – 6
UNCOMMITTED
Yamina – 7
Raam – 4
ANTI-NETANYAHU – 58
Yesh Atid – 18
Blue&White – 8
Israel Beiteinu – 7
Labor – 7
Joint Arab List – 6
New Hope – 6
Meretz – 6
Will Netanyahu manage to pull in both Yamina’s Naftali Bennett and Raam’s Mansour Abbas (as an outside supporter)? Not clear. Itamar Ben Gvir, who finally made it into the Knesset with Religious Zionism, asked on Wednesday what would happen to Abbas’s support should the IDF be forced to enter the Gaza Strip, or even following less dramatic military action.
On the other hand, would Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid manage to draw in the same two leaders and remove Netanyahu from office? Also a good question. So there’s plenty of drama to go around, but mostly because there were no dramatic changes in the size of the two camps.
According to attorney Ben Meir, “Mr. Camille Fuchs’s remarks, that there were both dramatic and decisive results, were revealed within two hours to have been a blatant lie,” which begs the question, “Why was it appropriate for Mr. Camille Fuchs to publish such a blatant lie, which in two hours would turn out to be a complete lie, and why did the news outlet broadcast such a lie, with both violating the law prohibiting the publication of polls results on election day? Well, the answer to that is simple: follow the money – or in Hebrew, greed.”
According to Ben Meir, “at the time when the offense of publishing a survey was committed and the false information about the sample results was broadcast, the news outlet and Mr. Camille Fuchs on its behalf, were looking to attract viewers so that they would end up watching the sample results after 10 PM on their broadcast station and not the competition. That’s why they inform their viewers (including those who hadn’t yet voted) at 8 PM about the decisive results of the election, and at 10 PM, when the financial goal of attracting viewers was achieved (perhaps), then they tell them the truth: there was no decision or drama, but the usual and routine draw.”
Ben Meir stated: “These acts of Mr. Camille Fuchs and the news outlet are extremely serious. It was not just a matter of publishing by mistake and in good faith a random survey – they published the results of a survey at a time when it was illegal to do it, in a gross and clear misrepresentation of the results of the survey, all of it for the sole purpose of making money.”
And he told the AG: “In view of the serious circumstances of committing the offense of publishing false survey results out of greed, as I noted above, you are hereby requested to order the launching of an investigation against the network’s news division and against Mr. Camille Fuchs on suspicion of violating the provisions of section 16ה (ח) of the Propaganda Law.”
News 13 responded: “Ahead of the 10 PM sample, during the main news edition, Camille Fuchs said: ‘In all my years I have not seen such dramatic results.’ This was the headline that came up on the screen, and it was a legitimate statement that reflected the dramatic findings he had in his hands. When Fuchs was asked in a live broadcast whether the results would be dramatic and decisive, it was implied that they were, but it should be stressed, however, that he meant was that the results were dramatic and clear and by no means a decision in the election in favor of a particular party. Beyond that, these were interpretations of his statement.”
The statement continues: “Therefore, Professor Fuchs’s statement included no revelation of the results of the sample itself. Moreover, any hint of a pre-planned move is incorrect, because the statement was not reflected in the on-screen news strip, nor was it reverberated by the broadcast editors, who like the presenters, reporters, and others in the studio, did not know what were the results of the sample, due to the secrecy maintained until its publication.”
Here’s a video of pollster Camil Fuchs on Channel 13, promoting the really exciting results of the last year’s vote – and the reactions from the panel about his habitual hype:
