The article argues that religious Zionists, like ultra-Orthodox consumers, should use their purchasing power against media owners they believe are hostile to them. It says people wearing knitted kippot, and those who support the right, the government, the settlements, or the judicial overhaul, have felt targeted for a long time by television studios, especially Channel 12, which it accuses of running repeated campaigns against the government and attacking so-called “messianists” and “death eaters.”
By contrast, the ultra-Orthodox, according to the piece, have decided they are no longer willing to be passive. The reported boycott is aimed at the Central Bottling Company group, which owns Coca-Cola, Tara, Prigat and Neviot, because of its ties to Dudi Weisman. Weisman is the controlling owner of Channel 12 and also profits when consumers buy those drinks. The article says the logic is simple, a company cannot finance a media machine that denigrates an entire public while also profiting from that same public in supermarkets.
The writer says executives and media owners are not moved by criticism, letters or calls from the Second Authority, only by money. It claims that when sales in Bnei Brak and Mea Shearim begin to fall, the tone in the studios will change. The article then turns to the religious Zionist public, calling it a major consumer bloc in Israel that tends to avoid confrontation for fear of being labeled extreme.
As an example of an effective boycott, the piece cites the earlier ultra-Orthodox boycott of Angel Bakeries. It says the boycott began after former minister Omer Bar-Lev, then chairman of the company, took part in a protest outside the home of Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, and that within two or three weeks the owners came to apologize to the rabbis. The article concludes that religious Zionists should follow that example, use their card only where they are respected, and make clear that those who slander them on television should not expect their money in their businesses.
