The Ministerial Committee on Legislation has voted to advance a bill to grant the government the authority to appoint the executive council of the Israeli Public Broadcasting Company, known as KAN.
Current legislation dictates that an independent selection committee, and not the government, chooses the members for the executive council.
The bill will now head to the Knesset plenum, where a preliminary vote will be held on Wednesday.
The bill proposal, by Likud MK Osher Shekalim, is one of a number of proposals targeting KAN that are being promoted by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi.
While Karhi has argued that public broadcasting of news is unnecessary since there is a competitive news market, opponents have argued that Karhi’s real motivation is to limit KAN’s independence since it sometimes takes a critical stance on government policies.
The proposal came after the High Court of Justice ruled on January 6 to temporarily extend the membership of two members of the executive council whose terms had expired, Michal Refaeli-Kaduri and Menachem Ben-Sasson.
The executive council has up to 12 members. The minimum quorum for the committee to convene is seven members. The committee numbered 10 members until November 2024, when the term of five out of the 10 expired.
Three out of the five had finished their second term and therefore their term could not be extended. However, Refaeli-Kaduri and Ben-Sasson had finished their first term, and were eligible to serve another term. Karhi refused to grant them a second term.
This left just five members on the council, and it was effectively paralyzed. The High Court ruling on January 6 temporarily extended Refaeli-Kaduri’s and Ben-Sasson’s terms so as to enable KAN to function until replacements were appointed.
Karhi announced that he would not respect the ruling, and called Refaeli-Kaduri and Ben-Sasson “representatives of the extreme Left.”
Karhi also has yet to appoint a new head to the selection committee that is responsible for proposing new members for the council, after the former head, retired judge Moshe Drori, resigned in November. Drori stepped down after allegations emerged that he had knowingly approved candidates for the selection committee based on experience that they did not actually have.
Drori was Karhi’s second selection committee head to resign. The first, retired judge Nechama Netzer, resigned in January 2024 after revelations that her husband, lawyer Aryeh Netzer, was active in attempting to shut down KAN.
Expanding government control
The new law proposal would shorten the procedure by simply giving the government the power to appoint all 12 members of the executive council. This would give the government far more influence over KAN and effectively end KAN’s independence.
The new proposal also came after Knesset Economic Committee chairman Likud MK David Bitan announced on January 15 that he would not agree to advance two other bills aimed at harming KAN. The first was a bill to privatize KAN’s news section, and the second was a proposal to give the government greater power over KAN’s annual budget.
KAN is a member of the European Broadcasting Union. In a letter to Bitan ahead of a previous committee meeting in December, EBU chairman Noel Curran expressed “deep concern regarding the proposed legislation to privatize Israel’s public service broadcaster or reduce its budget.”
Curran added that “such a move would not only jeopardize Israel’s media landscape but could also have significant ramifications for the country’s democratic foundations and international reputation,” and indicated that it would with near-certainty lead to KAN’s expulsion from the EBU.
This could negatively affect Israel’s ability to enjoy rights awarded to members of the EBU, such as participation in the annual Eurovision Song Contest and free broadcasting of major sporting events, Curran wrote.