Ministers advance bill to take control of public broadcaster’s oversight council
Communications minister has come under intense criticism for measures seen as aiming to erode the independence of Kan
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"

The government on Monday gave its stamp of approval to a measure that would allow it to appoint, upon the recommendation of the communications minister, all 12 members of the Kan public broadcaster’s governing council.
The council is empowered to appoint senior officials to the public broadcaster, determine its working procedures, set its various policies, and lay out and approve its annual work plan.
However, it has not been able to operate since November, when the end of the tenure of two members brought it down below seven members.
The governing council cannot function without a quorum of seven members, and so its policy-setting and oversight functions for the public broadcaster have essentially been suspended.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has come under intense criticism from opposition politicians for declaring earlier this month that he would disobey an interim High Court order to extend the tenure of two of the council members whose terms had expired so that it would have a quorum.
In its explanatory notes, the bill’s sponsor, Likud MK Osher Shekalim, argued that the public broadcaster was currently being run without proper oversight by the council.
“The current situation in which many parties are doing everything in their power to prevent the minister from appointing new council members is a dangerous situation,” he asserted.
It is the task of the governing council’s search committee to appoint new members to the council, but that body also cannot function at present since the previous chairman, Moshe Drori, appointed by Karhi, resigned in November. Karhi has also not appointed a new chairman of the search committee.
“This amendment will lead to a simple and efficient appointment process, and will result in the appointment of a new council as soon as possible, which will reflect, according to law, the diversity of opinions in the Israeli public,” Shekalim stated.
Members of the Israeli news media have repeatedly criticized Karhi and the current coalition for what they say are efforts to muzzle and control the press — and especially the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, which operates Kan television and radio, among other platforms.
A coalition bill mandating the privatization of the IPBC passed a preliminary reading 49-46 in the Knesset plenum in November. If passed into law, the bill would require the government to issue a tender for the purchase of the television and radio networks controlled by the IPBC.
The bill 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.

However, while the bill enjoys the support of the coalition, Knesset Economic Affairs Committee chairman David Bitan (Likud) earlier this month stated that he would prevent its advancement, as well as that of several other bills aimed at significantly overhauling the media ecosystem.
“I can’t advance this bill for a simple reason — public broadcasting is necessary,” Bitan announced, arguing that his fellow Likud lawmakers were “causing damage to the party and its members for the sake of politics, and I will not allow this.”
Other bills currently making their way through the Knesset would compel Kan to justify its decisions to the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee on an annual basis and give the government direct instead of indirect control over the broadcaster’s budget.
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.