Golan: Decision to close Army Radio ‘a brutal attack on the institutions of democracy’

By Sam Sokol 12 November 2025, 1:12 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Leader of The Democrats party Yair Golan leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, May 26, 2025. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

The Democrats chairman Yair Golan slams Defense Minister Israel’s Katz’s plan to close Army Radio, stating that while he once thought it possible to shutter the IDF-controlled station in order “to streamline and invest the public broadcasting funds differently,” this is not the government’s intent.

“What the Netanyahu government is doing today has nothing to do with streamlining public broadcasting in any way — this is the judicial coup on steroids and a brutal attack on the institutions of democracy, including the media,” Golan tweets.

“Today it’s either Army Radio and a free media or a poison machine and [the right-wing] Channel 14,” he adds, calling to “fight for Israeli democracy and “ensure that there is free media.”