Last night I heard on the radio on the TV news program (isn't that amazing how you can hear the TV news program on the radio??!!) an interesting piece of news.

They reported that Amir Peretz is being investigated for allegations that he bought votes in the recent Labor Party primaries using government money. I did not hear the whole report, but what I did hear was about how he promised money to the northern communities for "pikud ha'oref" - wartime preparation (Home Front) - for preparing bomb shelters and the like, if they would vote for him. Somehow the city of Tzfat was involved. It seems the jurisdiction for Pikud Ha'Oref up north is in the Tzfat region.

The mayor of Tzfat pushed people to vote and openly supported Amir Peretz. I do not recall the numbers, but Peretz received like triple the amount of votes in Tzfat than the other candidates.

Peretz, of course, denies it. He says he would love to give them money, but can't. He has to fix up the bomb shelters anyway, he said, so why would he promise that as an incentive to vote for him. Etc.

I do not know if he did it or did not do it. I want to know something else. I want to know why I have not heard anything since that initial report. Has the story been suppressed? Where is the reporting? I can't find any mention of this on Ha'aretz or Ynet or any other news source I have looked at.

Is this another example of the media pushing a specific agenda? Just yesterday Arutz 7 reported from the Haifa Radio Conference that IBA (Israel Broadcasting Authority) broadcasters admitted to having slanted the news reporting in order to push their personal agendas.

It seems a number of them had children serving in the IDF in Lebanon, at the time, and they wanted their children to be safe and out of Lebanon. So they slanted the news reporting to push an agenda so their kids would be home safe.

That is not even a national agenda of peace with Palestinians or whatever that they usually push. That was a personal agenda of some broadcasters. And they were proud of it (not admitting to it with an apology, but bragging about how they set the agenda!).

That is unbiased and objective news reporting?

A big story like possible corruption by the Defense Minister in internal party politics, using government for vote buying, and it is not mentioned in the major news sources? Is this another example of the same - some agenda being pushed? Does Amir Peretz now have some quasi-Etrog status?