From the Liveblog of
Sunday, March 30, 2025
In attacks on media, PM asks why public broadcaster should be funded, Chikli accuses liberal newspaper of ‘incitement’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. 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"
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli slam the Israeli media, accusing outlets of incitement and questioning why the government needs to fund public broadcasting that it cannot control, according to leaked statements made during Sunday’s cabinet meeting.
“Why should it be funded,” Netanyahu asks, referring to the Kan public broadcaster. “There is enormous waste there without any control. Almost a billion shekels. Let the market decide! Give the citizens of Israel the choice,” he continues, according to the Walla news site.
“The Communications Committee will reach a decision in the coming days,” he adds.
In February, Knesset Economic Affairs Committee chairman David Bitan (Likud) rejected Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi’s plan to establish a new “media committee,” in order to bypass his opposition to a coalition bill aimed at shutting down the Kan public broadcaster.
The proposed legislation, part of a larger media overhaul package advocated by Karhi, stipulates that if a buyer cannot be found in two years, the broadcaster will be shuttered completely, and its intellectual property will revert to the government. It passed a preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum in November 2024, but when it came up for discussion in Bitan’s committee, Bitan said that he “can’t advance this bill for a simple reason — public broadcasting is necessary.”
Netanyahu is reported to be in favor of Karhi’s efforts to circumvent Bitan’s committee to advance the controversial legislation.
Turning to Army Radio, Netanyahu asks why the station is needed, stating that Karhi and Defense Minister Israel Katz should look into the matter, Ynet reports.
Netanyahu’s Likud party is also pushing another bill to privatize the Army Radio. The bill would require the Second Authority for Television and Radio to carry out a tender for the sale of the network — along with affiliated network Galgalatz — to a private buyer.
According to Ynet, Chikli also attacks the liberal Haaretz daily, accusing it of engaging in “incitement” and doing “enormous damage to the country” through its critical reporting.
Last November, the cabinet announced that it was severing all ties with Haaretz.
Netanyahu and Chikli’s comments come two days after the Likud party issued a statement calling Kan “illegitimate,” accusing it of making fun of the prime minister’s late brother Yoni Netanyahu, a fallen IDF serviceman during a comedy sketch. Kan denied that it had been making fun of, or had mentioned, Yoni Netanyahu, but rather had lampooned the premier himself.
Responding to criticism in the cabinet on Sunday, Kan says in a statement that its establishment was “one of the most successful public reforms carried out by the Likud itself, and the Israeli public does indeed choose Kan every day – with two billion digital views per year, with more than a million listeners on Kan’s radio networks, with hundreds of thousands of viewers of television content every day.”
The Times of Israel Community.