Israel\u2019s High Court on Sunday temporarily halted the government\u2019s plan to shut down Army Radio, issuing an injunction that freezes the move until petitions challenging the decision are heard.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chief Justice Yitzhak Amit granted the order following a legal opinion\u00a0submitted\u00a0by Attorney General Gali\u00a0Baharav-Miara, who urged the court to intervene\u00a0immediately. In his ruling, Amit said the government\u2019s decision must be suspended in full, citing concerns that irreversible steps could be taken before judicial review is completed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI have reached the conclusion that the request should be granted, and that the government decision should be frozen in all its implications, until a further decision,\u201d Amit wrote. He added that the ruling was issued, among other reasons, because \u201cthe government\u2019s response did not include an explicit commitment to refrain from irreversible actions until the legal proceedings are concluded.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The proposed closure of Army Radio, formally known as Galei Tzahal, was announced in November by Defense Minister Israel Katz. At the time, Katz argued that the station\u2019s editorial approach conflicted with its military mandate, saying its \u201ccivilian-style journalism harms the war effort and morale\u201d and violates the principle of nonpartisanship within the armed forces.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Legal challenges and public criticism followed the move. Petitioners warned that shutting down the 75-year-old broadcaster would cause lasting harm to press freedom and public discourse. The Movement for Quality Government in Israel argued that the decision was driven by improper considerations, claiming it was undertaken out of \u201culterior motives\u201d and would undermine democratic norms.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among the central claims raised in the petitions is that closing a publicly funded broadcaster requires primary legislation rather than a Cabinet decision, making the government\u2019s approach legally deficient.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In her submission to the court earlier Sunday,\u00a0Baharav-Miara\u00a0sharply criticized the decision-making process behind the proposed shutdown. She warned that the consequences of proceeding could not be undone, writing that \u201cthe damage that would be caused by taking steps to close the station is significant and irreversible.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Baharav-Miara\u00a0also questioned the integrity of the process that led to the recommendation,\u00a0stating\u00a0that \u201cthere is a serious concern that the closure of the station constitutes a goal that was marked in advance.\u201d She said those concerns were heightened by \u201cthe significant question marks that arise regarding the factual and professional basis laid by the advisory committee to support its recommendations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s High Court on Sunday temporarily halted the government\u2019s plan to shut down Army Radio, issuing an injunction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-208504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}