Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi (Likud) vowed that his communications reform bill will pass with full force at the first Knesset committee meeting on Monday, which will discuss the outline offering sweeping reforms to Israel’s broadcasting sector.
“Let me say clearly: I will not fold, and I will not surrender to pressure,” Karhi told the panel.
The meeting was led by MK Galit Distel Atbaryan (Likud), who chairs the new special committee formed exclusively to advance the reform.
In a controversial move, the Knesset approved establishing this committee last week instead of routing the legislation through the Knesset’s Economic Affairs Committee, where such bills are typically debated, chaired by MK David Bitan (Likud). Bitan has spoken openly against the reform, prompting critics to argue that the new committee was created to push the legislation forward without internal objections.
Atbaryan opened the session by slamming local media, accusing it of being biased against the right-wing: The media has currently “erased complexity from public discourse in favor of one hollow, foolish agenda.”
The agenda is “anyone but [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] Bibi,” she added.
Opposition MKs erupted in anger over the remarks, and MK Vladimir Beliak (Yesh Atid) was removed from the panel as it was just beginning.
Marathon committee meetings in the Knesset to advance the bill have been scheduled throughout the week to fast-track the lengthy reform before a second and third reading in the Knesset’s plenum. The communications minister’s bill passed its first reading in early November.
Karhi told the panel that the purpose of the reform was to create a law that “brought Israel toward a free and competitive market, with less regulation, fewer barriers, and less government intervention.”
Varied criticism of the communications reform bill
The meeting was packed with opposition lawmakers, many of whom spoke against the reform, calling it undemocratic and a way to silence the media during an election year.
Addressing criticism that the bill is undemocratic, Atbaryan said, “We are not interested in a dictatorship, because we have no reason to be one; we are the group that wins again and again. It is democracy that allows us to come to power over and over again.”
Amid the clashes in the meeting, some opposition lawmakers noted that aspects of the reform were positive.
However, in the proposal’s outline, which is over 100 pages, MK Gilad Kariv (the Democrats) said that “poison pills” have been inserted.
“A politicization of the council is underway. There are issues with sanction mechanisms, there are violations of the requirement for separation in news – this is unacceptable, and it is clear where it will lead,” Kariv said.
“To speak highly of a law that opens the market but allows cross-ownership contradicts the law’s rhetoric,” he added.
The director-general of the Communications Ministry, Elad Makdasi, presented the main points of the reform to the panel.
Among them, it was stated that for nearly two decades now, there has been a need to adapt broadcasting regulations to modern times.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) criticized the reform in his remarks at a Knesset press conference on Monday, calling the special panel that was created for the discussions the “gag committee.”
“The goal is to shut people’s mouths,” he said.
“What is on the committee’s table is not a reform. It is a campaign of incitement and gagging against the free press. It is a hostile takeover of the media. It is a blatant attempt to threaten and silence journalism in an election year,” Lapid added.
Critics of Karhi’s lengthy reform have stated that it could harm the free press and Israel’s democracy.
Regulating the supply of audiovisual content uniformly across all broadcasting platforms is one of the reform’s many agendas.
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara disapproved of advancing the broader communications reform bill before it reached the plenum for a first reading.
She said in September that the bill posed a concrete threat to the free press in Israel and its ability to fulfill its duties in a democratic society, adding that the proposal itself lacks fundamental qualities.
The Union of Journalists in Israel, a key watchdog in the industry, petitioned the High Court of Justice to halt the advancement of the communications reform law.
According to the petition, it violates administrative law, ignores legal advice, and threatens the independence of the free press.
Sarah Ben-Nun contributed to this report.