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<\/a>\n\t\tIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a vote at the plenum hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem, on July 16, 2026 (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n
Immediately after the law\u2019s passage, petitions against it were filed with the High Court of Justice by several government watchdog groups and political parties, who requested that the court issue an interim order freezing its implementation before ultimately issuing a ruling that strikes down the legislation.<\/p>\n
The petitions allege a slew of severe procedural flaws in the legislative process, which they say should invalidate the law by itself, something the Knesset legal adviser has repeatedly warned of regarding the manner in which the media law was passed.<\/p>\n
A petition filed by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel also pointed out that parts of the law come into effect immediately, which will \u201ccause irreversible damage to the media market\u201d just ahead of the October 27 election.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe communications minister himself declared that his goal is to \u2018crush the left\u2019s monopoly on the media\u2019 \u2014 in other words, to subordinate the press to the government,\u201d said Yaniv Goldberg of the Movement for Quality Government.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have petitioned the court because without a free media there are no free elections, and we are confident that the court will stop this legislative ambush as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karhi defended the legislation, arguing that it serves to balance what he claims is an overwhelmingly anti-government media landscape.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter a determined struggle against every possible element from the deep state, tycoons, attorneys, officials and fearmongering networks \u2013 we managed to pass the right-wing media reform,\u201d he wrote in a social media post.<\/p>\n
\t Karhi claimed that the new law \u201cbreaks up monopolies,\u201d removes regulation and transfers power back to the consumer, adding that the reform will lead to \u201cmore diversity, more freedom, more right-wing coverage and less regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n Opposition leaders denounced the legislation, accusing the government of trying to take control over the media to ensure success in the upcoming elections.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a democratic country, it is forbidden to silence the free press,\u201d said former prime minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Together party, in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cIn its final days, the government is passing absurd and dangerous laws whose sole purpose is to preserve its own political survival,\u201d said Bennett, vowing to overturn this and other laws passed this week if elected.<\/p>\n The Yisrael Beytenu party accused the government of turning Israel into a country \u201cmodeled on [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan\u2019s Turkey,\u201d where press freedom and the independence of the judiciary have largely been neutered by the government.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter trying to take over the judicial system, the government responsible for the October 7 massacre now wants to take over the media as well. Instead of a free press, they want a media made up of government mouthpieces and court reporters. In the next government, we will repeal this law as well,\u201d the party said.<\/p>\n \t The law establishes a new media regulator that is formally independent, but the committee responsible for selecting its leadership would be chaired by the director general of the Communications Ministry, giving the communications minister effective control over appointments.<\/p>\n It also abolishes the longstanding requirement that commercial broadcasters maintain structurally independent news companies, a safeguard intended to insulate editorial decisions from the commercial interests of media owners.<\/p>\n The legislation also largely eliminates longstanding restrictions on cross-ownership in Israel\u2019s media market, allowing the owners of broadcast television channels to also own news outlets.<\/p>\n The change would particularly benefit billionaire Patrick Drahi, a Netanyahu ally who owns both the HOT telecommunications company and i24NEWS, which has until now been barred from broadcasting over cable and satellite platforms. By removing the restrictions \u2013 designed to prevent a small number of owners from amassing excessive influence over public opinion \u2013 large media conglomerates can expand across multiple sectors and significantly broaden their reach.<\/p>\n The law also includes provisions to increase government influence over television ratings data and the allocation of state advertising budgets.<\/p>\n Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, who leads the Israel Democracy Institute\u2019s Democracy in the Digital Age Program and has followed<\/a> the legislation closely, told The Times of Israel\u00a0that rather than making the market \u201cmore free and accessible,\u201d it strips away key obligations from commercial broadcasters while leaving them subject to less scrutiny.<\/p>\n \t A provision raising the annual revenue threshold for classification as a \u201cminor channel\u201d from NIS 80 million to NIS 2 billion would in practice \u201crelease all broadcast channels from their significant obligations,\u201d including requirements to operate separate news companies and invest in original Israeli productions.<\/p>\n Critics argue the change would particularly benefit the pro-government Channel 14, allowing it to retain the lighter regulatory status it already enjoys even after outgrowing the original threshold, while larger commercial broadcasters would also be released from many of their current obligations.<\/p>\n Channel 14 would therefore continue to be exempt from requirements including establishing a separate news company, investing in original productions, and paying licensing fees.<\/p>\n Clauses regarding oversight and ethical standards obligating channels to ensure minimum journalistic standards were removed from the law, which, Shwartz Altshuler said, \u201camounts to an explicit statement that there is no place for oversight of news quality in Israel,\u201d effectively treating professional journalism as equivalent to any content regardless of whether it is \u201charmful, biased, fabricated, or produced in accordance with professional standards.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a change of tectonic magnitude, contrary to any known professional logic and to everything presented so far,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \t Shwartz Altshuler further warned that the law\u2019s exemption of international streaming platforms from investing in Israeli productions discriminates against local broadcasters by allowing \u201cforeign giants\u201d to compete in the Israeli market \u201cwithout any commitment to local production,\u201d while reducing investment in original Israeli content, which was one of the stated goals of the legislation.<\/p>\n The current version of the bill is the product of repeated revisions following resistance from coalition partners.<\/p>\n Earlier proposals included a government-run streaming app that would allow the public to watch television channels and sports broadcasts free of charge, but the provision was dropped after opposition from the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, who objected to the service operating on Shabbat.<\/p>\n It also includes new provisions<\/a> reportedly demanded by the far-right Noam MK Avi Maoz, restricting cable and satellite providers from broadcasting content involving violence, sexuality or religious conversion.<\/p>\n This decision stripped much of the substance from the legislation, which originally envisioned shutting down the Idan Plus platform and replacing it with a free public streaming app. Savings from the move were intended to provide the financial basis for the new media regulator.<\/p>\n Critics argue that the legislation\u2019s substance has been matched only by the manner in which it was advanced. Knesset legal advisers, the attorney general, opposition lawmakers and media experts have described the law as having been pushed through in one of the most irregular legislative processes in recent memory, accusing the coalition of repeatedly circumventing parliamentary norms by ignoring legal advice, introducing sweeping last-minute revisions, splitting the legislation to bypass procedural obstacles and giving lawmakers only hours to review major changes before voting.<\/p>\n \t Even as the legislation was being debated in the plenum ahead of the final vote, Knesset Legal Adviser Sagit Afik warned lawmakers in a letter that approving coalition reservations that had never been substantively debated by the committee \u201cconstitutes a defect,\u201d particularly in light of what she described as the bill\u2019s already deeply flawed legislative process.<\/p>\n The coalition has resorted to increasingly extreme measures to pass at least some parts of the legislation, which passed the first of three plenum readings in November. It started with the formation of a special committee to discuss the bill, headed by Likud MK Galit Distel-Atbarian, to bypass the Knesset Economics Committee headed by Likud MK David Bitan, who had blocked previous efforts by Karhi, including his legislation to shut down the Kan public broadcaster.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tCommunications Minister Shlomo Karhi attends a vote at the plenum hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem, on July 16, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tA large billboard sign for Channel 14 posted on a building in Jerusalem, August 14, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tMK Tally Gotliv attends a vote at the plenum hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem on July 16, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tTehilla Shwartz Altshuler speaks at a conference at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, March 11, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a vote at the plenum hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem on July 16, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n