Lawmakers spar over media bill as committee accused of bulldozing objections

By Sam Sokol 19 April 2026, 9:14 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"

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has gone to “war” against the “two flagship laws of the Israeli government, the Conscription Law and the Communications Law,” and has “decided to take the rule of law into her own hands,” Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi declares during a meeting of the Knesset Committee for Deliberating the Communications Bill.

The bill, which would dramatically overhaul Israel’s media landscape and is opposed by the attorney general’s office, aims to provide the government significant control over broadcast media, news sites, and other media, by establishing a new regulatory council, with a majority of members chosen by the communications minister, that would have an array of authorities over broadcast media, including the ability to issue hefty fines.

Addressing the committee, Adv. Mesada Mazlavi, a member of the committee’s professional team tasked with suggesting amendments to the legislation, argues that none of the changes proposed by the panel’s lawyers had been adopted, with the resultant draft failing to address a significant “fundamental core” issue.

Mazlavi argues that leaving the director general of the Communications Ministry in charge of the search committee that would choose members of the council “may harm the professional integrity of the [panel] and the ability to ensure its recommendations are free from foreign considerations.”

During this afternoon’s debate, opposition MKs accuse chair Likud MK Galit Distel-Atbaryan of “putting on a show for the cameras, to make it look like there were real discussions here” while retaining the original version of the law, to which Distel-Atbaryan replied that she would not allow a “filibuster” in her committee.

“The way you disrespected the committee’s legal counsel, I haven’t seen anything like it in the three years I’ve been here,” Yesh Atid MK Shelly Tal Meron tells Distel-Atbaryan, who counters that “there is no one sitting in this room who can claim they were not given the right to speak.”