Knesset gives initial okay to delay new broadcaster launch

The Knesset plenum on Tuesday gave initial approval to a two-week delay in opening the new public broadcaster, which was set to launch next week.

During a special session interrupting the parliament’s spring recess, 44 lawmakers voted in favor of the postponement in its first reading, following a heated three-hour Knesset debate. Thirty-three Knesset members opposed the delay and one abstained.

The Knesset plenum will open again on Wednesday to finalize the delay until May 15 with a second and third vote. While bills generally take weeks to months to go through the legislative process, the coalition plans to complete the three plenary readings and committee debates required for this proposal in just two days.

Despite having faced numerous delays at the hand of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the new broadcaster, formally called “Kan” and widely known as HaTa’agid (the corporation), was finally due to go on air at the end of this month.

But last month, under pressure from Netanyahu, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon agreed to a deal that will entirely strip the new broadcaster of its news division and create a separate broadcast entity to deal with all current affairs offerings.

In order to facilitate the changes, which represent a significant overhaul of wide-reaching, Likud-led reforms passed in 2014, Kahlon and Netanyahu agreed to delay the transmission of the stripped-back corporation by another two weeks.

Under the deal — which ended a coalition standoff that threatened new elections — Kan will lose its centerpiece news division, for which staff had been hired ahead of the intended launch on April 30, and the old Israel Broadcasting Authority’s staffers are instead to provide the station’s news in the coming months before a new news department is set up.

The reason for the two-week delay, as cited by the bill, was to allow the coalition more time to finish writing the legislation to dismantle, and later replace, the news division. The government has already delayed the launch of the new entity several times.

Opposition lawmakers at the session charged the process was designed to see Netanyahu seize control over the new public media outlet.

“This is how they act in North Korea, when a leader gets up in the morning and says ‘I don’t want him, cut off his head,'” said Zionist Union MK Micky Rosenthal, a former journalist. “The concern here is that Netanyahu wants to influence the news from Jerusalem during the transition period.”

In an unusually personal jab, Meretz MK Ilan Gilon questioned the prime minister’s sanity, suggesting he seek psychological counseling from his wife, Sara.

“Bibi, my brother, your life partner is a psychologist. Turn to her, you probably need help,” he said.

“Commissar Netanyahu sees himself as censor, editor, anchor, and photographer [of the new corporation],” he added.

Representing the government, Tourism Minister Yariv Levin insisted the change was “technical” and maintained the final deal was “not perfect.”

“It’s a compromise, and it is in the nature of compromises that they aren’t perfect,” he said.

Undeterred by the government moves, Kan on Tuesday morning announced several new hires to the news department — even as lawmakers inched closer to shutting it down.