As part of a coalition determined to put an end to Israeli public broadcaster Kan, Likud MK Nissim Vaturi submitted a bill to privatize military radio on the grounds that “there is no need to ‘a military radio financed with public funds, functioning as a military unit and composed of soldiers’.
Placed on the Knesset agenda this week, the proposal calls for the Second Television and Radio Authority to issue a tender to sell the station – along with its affiliated network Galgalatz – to a private buyer.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi announced his intention to close the Second Authority last year.
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Army Radio – one of the most listened to news stations in Israel – was established in 1950, very shortly after the creation of the state. Its staff consists of a mix of young soldiers and accomplished journalists.
The very existence and financing by the army of a radio station operated by journalists responsible for investigating the actions of the army and the government have long been considered anachronistic, costly and ethically tricky. .
Successive defense ministers and chiefs of staff have considered closing or privatizing it.
Under the proposed law, the IDF would have to stop providing soldiers to the station within two years.
In 2023, the Minister of Defense at the time, Yoav Gallant, had given up on closing or privatizing army radio, despite several years of announcements to this effect from successive governments and the army.
Likud MK Nissim Vaturi speaking during a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the ultra-Orthodox bill, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, June 25, 2024. (Chaïm Goldberg /Flash90)
Israeli media estimate that the bill could be voted on by the Ministerial Law Committee as early as this Sunday, but it is not on its agenda for next week.
Vaturi’s bill repeats the arguments of a similar text adopted in preliminary reading by 49 votes to 46 in the Knesset on Wednesday. This other proposal, proposed by Likud MK Tally Gotliv, calls for the government to issue a tender for the sale of television and radio stations operated by the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation under the Kan label within two years .
Perceived by journalists and opposition deputies as a threat to press freedom, this proposal stipulates that if there is no buyer within two years, the radio will be closed and its intellectual property rights returned to the government.
Another bill to give the government greater control over the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation’s budget received support from the Law Committee this month.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi presenting his media market reform to journalists, in Jerusalem, July 17, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
These two legislative proposals concerning the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation are under examination while the coalition is talking about a third text intended to give the government authority over television audience data.
This week, the Council of Ministers invited ministries and public services as a whole to boycott Haaretz after its editor-in-chief, Amos Schocken, called Palestinian terrorists “freedom fighters” – comments on which he partly retracted.
The Foreign Press Association and the Union of Journalists in Israel accuse the government of undermining the foundations of democracy and press freedom, while the promoters of these proposals assure that they are intended to liberalize the media and boost competition.
On Thursday evening, Karhi threatened to file a defamation complaint against former Shas party MP Yigal Guetta for having, during an interview with channel N 12, suggested that the Minister of Communications benefited from the political support of the media that would benefit from the closure of the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.
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