Netanyahu slams sudden closing of Channel 1 news

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slams the way Israel’s Channel 1 nightly news was abruptly taken off the air yesterday, with only two hours’ notice, calling the way it was handled “disrespectful and dishonorable.”

“The prime minister heard about it from the media. He did not support the move and It was not done with his knowledge. He is also not authorized to make such a decision,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office says, disavowing responsibility for the move.

It was announced just before the main “Mabat” news bulletin that Channel 1 would be shut down today, as part of the changeover to replace the Israel Broadcasting Authority TV station with a new publicly funded entity, known as “Kan.”

Many blame Netanyahu for the fiasco surrounding the whole issue of the public broadcaster, which has roiled Israeli politics for months.

Haim Yavin, the retired anchor who in 1977 announced on “Mabat” the political revolution that brought Menachem Begin’s Likud party to power in Israel for the first time, said in the final minutes of the Tuesday broadcast that the scrapping of the IBA was “idiocy” and the consequence of “the whim of one man, who happens to be the prime minister.”

However, Netanyahu’s office said he was a champion of the journalists, many of whom wept openly in the last newscast.

“The prime minister was the one who fought so that the news company of the channel would continue broadcasting with as many workers as possible absorbed into the news body,” the statement says.