Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing to rehabilitate the existing Israel Broadcasting Authority and to revoke the law to establish a new state broadcaster, Kan. Netanyahu said Monday that "we will rehabilitate the IBA and do so in a fiscally responsible manner." Meanwhile, MK Yoav Kisch (Likud) met with the heads of six IBA committees and reached an agreement with them on a series of efficiency measures that Kisch said would be presented to the Finance Ministry in the next few days. The steps include the dismissal of 300 IBA employees, salary reductions and changes to contracts, as well as the IBA agreeing to give up its facilities in the Sarona compound in Tel Aviv and the Romema neighborhood of Jerusalem and move to facilities acquired by Kan. Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon continues to oppose the move to close down the new broadcaster, maintaining that doing so would cost the state hundreds of millions of shekels. The Likud party disagrees, arguing that the funds invested in the new broadcaster would be transferred to the IBA, and that the reason the new broadcaster was founded was the infeasibility of instituting reforms and efficiency measures in the IBA. Citing the measures implemented thus far in the IBA, as well as those slated for this coming year, Likud officials pointed out that "as soon as the IBA started becoming more efficient and willing to institute additional efficiency measures, the whole idea of the new broadcaster became redundant." Kahlon chose not to attend a meeting of coalition party heads held Monday to discuss the bill to shutter the new broadcaster. President Reuven Rivlin, in his address to the Knesset plenum Monday, also spoke out against Netanyahu's decision regarding the new broadcasting corporation. "Anyone who is in favor of public broadcasting cannot turn it into a mouthpiece, and anyone who opposes public broadcasting should say so clearly," Rivlin said. "Anyone who wants public broadcasting must guarantee that it will be unbiased. Because we all understand that on the Ferris wheel of politics, sometimes you're at the top, and sometimes you're at the bottom." Opposition Leader MK Isaac Herzog said that Netanyahu, by attempting to shut down Kan, is trying to silence the media and psychologically influence anyone who criticizes him.
