The Likud party is taking aim at Israel's new public broadcasting authority ahead of a scheduled meeting Sunday between coalition faction heads that will decide its future. It is believed that despite the objection of some coalition factions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also holds the communication portfolio, will exercise his authority to shelve the new broadcaster's establishment, allowing the Israel Broadcasting Authority, which has been in the process of being dismantled for the past two years, to continue operating. One Likud official said Saturday that "what was supposed to be a public broadcasting corporation has become a corporation of [Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon] Noni Mozes and the Left. Most of the key positions in the new broadcaster were, not surprisingly, given to leftists and associates of Mozes." The official is believed to have been referring to individuals such as chairman Gil Omer, who was news director at Yedioth Ahronoth; special adviser to the broadcaster Shilo De-Beer, formerly editor-in-chief of Yedioth Ahronoth; producer Michal Dagan, a close associate of Yedioth weekend magazine editor Ram Landes; economic editor Shaul Amsterdamski, formerly a senior reporter with Yedioth Media Group's financial daily Calcalist; and documentary and investigative department head Doron Tsabari, who was a member of the public council of the leftist New Israel Fund. "Does the Israeli public need to pay millions of shekels to found another media outlet for Noni Mozes and the Left? Is that the point of free, balanced, public broadcasting? Absolutely not -- and it must not happen," the official said, adding that public broadcasting should be returned to the hands of the IBA, which has undergone cuts and streamlining. "The reason why the new broadcaster was formed was to streamline the IBA's budget, but these efficiency measures have already been implemented. When the IBA was founded, it had about 1,700 employees. Today, after the efficiency measure, it employs 1,050 people and is prepared to implement further efficiency steps. The government's demand to lay off about 1,000 good, professional employees, while at the same time allocating hundreds of millions of shekels to Noni Mozes and his people's new leftist broadcaster, is ridiculous," he said. On Friday, in an interview with Channel 2, coalition chairman MK David Bitan said the broadcaster, known as Kan, had been "hijacked by people with a left-wing, anti-government agenda, and they want to implement that agenda. It is completely clear to us that this broadcasting authority will be the broadcasting authority of the staunch Left." On Saturday evening, several dozen protesters gathered in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv and outside the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem, demanding that the new broadcaster be allowed to go on the air as scheduled in 2017. "We won't let [Netanyahu] make a move against the [new] public broadcaster. We have to stop the theft of public funds. We oppose political rule through the media, and the destruction of Israeli work," one protester said. Earlier Saturday, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan spoke to Channel 2 and responded to Bitan's statements. "Unfortunately, MK Bitan is once again badly mistaken. The entire process of building and implementing the new corporation took place this past year and a half under the current government, when I was public security minister and not communications minister. It looks to me as if the claim that anyone who supports the establishment of the new broadcaster is afraid of the media is even more absurd," Erdan said. The Journalists Association of Jerusalem called on the cabinet to adopt a new approach that would integrate the journalists for the new broadcaster into the IBA. According to the proposal, the governing board and the management of the new broadcaster would all be fired, and both organizations would merge into one new broadcasting authority. Meanwhile, head of the IBA documentaries department Itai Landsberg took to Facebook at the weekend to respond to a document published by the new broadcaster, claiming: "The new corporation insists on not announcing the names of a single film or program in its preparatory document. ... The corporation announces that it has 53 documentaries. Well, it doesn't. In the appendix it wrote itself, it's written that it signed with seven production companies for nine episodes. Where did the 53 documentaries pop up from-" Landsberg's post went on to detail all of the IBA-produced work that would, under the law, be transferred to the new broadcasting corporation when it starts operations.
