Likud’s Bitan rejects minister’s plan to form committee to bypass him on Kan bill

Knesset Economic Affairs Committee chairman David Bitan (Likud) rejects 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.

“With all due respect, no government bill on any reform has been placed on my desk, so I’m not stopping anything,” Bitan tells his committee.

“On the contrary, the minister explained what he intends to do. Handed out flyers as if we were on an election campaign, but I didn’t receive anything. Second, the minister has a very great lack of understanding of the separation of powers. He can bring bills to the Knesset… If it doesn’t work out for him, he can’t bring it to a special committee. There will be no special media committee,” Bitan says.

“This is the end of the discussion on the matter,” he adds.

On Monday, Karhi declared that he would establish a new committee in order to advance the controversial legislation, which would require the government to issue a tender for the purchase of the television and radio networks controlled by the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC), which operates Kan television and radio, among other platforms.

“Unfortunately, there are those within the coalition who are delaying the reforms,” he said, accusing Bitan of “going with the opposition” and predicting that the “reforms will be completed by the end of July.”

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 last month, Bitan said that he “can’t advance this bill for a simple reason — public broadcasting is necessary.”

“There has always been public broadcasting in Israel, so in terms of canceling the public broadcaster, I’m not in favor,” Bitan said at the time. “Unfortunately, there are those in Likud who are causing damage to the party and its members for the sake of politics, and I will not allow this.”