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IDF Radio Under Attack: Public Broadcasting Resilience in Question

>> Read the full position paper in pdf

On 2 September 2025, in response to its call for input from the public, we approached the committee set up to look into the status and operation mode of IDF Radio (Galei Tzahal). The committee was established on 11 August 2025 by Defense Minister Yisrael Katz to examine whether IDF Radio “fulfills its original purpose.”

In our submission, we clarified that the matter had only recently been discussed by a committee appointed by former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, which published its recommendations at the beginning of 2024. That committee recommended not to close the station or remove it from the defense establishment, and noted its immense contribution to the Israeli media market and its status as a cultural cornerstone.

We further noted that the creation of the committee did not occur in a vacuum, but against the background of the current government’s relentless attempts to harm public broadcasting and free media and explicit declarations of its members on the matter. We emphasized that public broadcasting is essential for the preservation of freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and the resilience of democracy.

Accordingly, Zulat strongly opposes the closure of IDF Radio or any harm to the station’s operation, and asserts that the circumstances of its creation preclude the committee from discussing this matter. Any examination of the station’s current operation mode must take into account the political and anti-democratic interests of the current government, which is seeking to completely eliminate public broadcasting and undermine a free media, as well as the destructive consequences this will have on democracy in Israel.

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Dr. Maha Sabbah Karkabi

 

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Tel Aviv University (2015), a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Gender Studies, SOAS, University of London (2015-2016), a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology at Tel Aviv University (2016-2017), and a postdoctoral fellowship Ph.D. at the Humphrey Institute for Social Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2018-2020).
Dr. Maha Karbahi’s areas of interest focus on the connection between social change, family behavior, and gender inequality in societies in the process of change and specifically in Palestinian Arab society in Israel. Her research draws attention to the study of family life and employment, using a combined “ethnic lens” and “gender lens” and paying attention to the perspective of Palestinian Arab women, a group characterized by intersections between multiple marginal locations, which over the years has remained hidden from the research eye. Dr. Karkabi-Sabah’s research is published in professional journals and chapters in scientific books that are considered pioneers in family research, work, and gender equality.

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Prof. Frances Raday

Professor Emeritus in the Lieberman Chair in Labor Law, in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University and serves as a full professor in the College of Management’s academic track, where she also serves as chair of the graduate program and as honorary president of the Concord Center for International Law Absorption. Radai was a member of a working group of the UN Human Rights Council on discrimination against women. In addition, she is a prominent and feminist human rights activist.

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Dr. Rawia Aburabia 

Faculty member of Sapir Academic College’s School of Law, received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research deals with the interface between law, gender, minorities, and human rights. Has published in leading journals on the subject of the matrimonial laws pertaining to Muslim women in Israel. Her book Under the Law, Outside Justice: Polygamy, Gendered Citizenship, and Colonialism in Israeli Law is expected to be published as part of the Gender Series of Kibbutz Meuhad Publishing House.

Dr. Aburabia has extensive experience in international human rights and public law. She has worked as a jurist for the Association for Civil Right and has been invited as a specialist to address such international forums as the United Nations and the European Parliament on the subject of indigenous communities and minority rights. She has interned with Human Rights Watch in Washington DC, and has been a member of the executive board of Amnesty International. In 2018, she was selected by the magazine Globes as one of the 40 most promising young persons in Israel under the age of 40.

 

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Ron Kessler

With over two decades of experience in the field of digital content, Ron has participated in numerous political and social campaigns. He helped run the digital activity of senior public officials, and worked in various NGOs. Ron is a fundamentally optimistic man, who believes that Israel can be changed and so can people. Lives in Tel Aviv.