Zulat opposes the extension of the Temporary Provision allowing the closure of a foreign broadcaster, which the government has been trying to advance in several ways simultaneously. On 27 June 2024, a proposed amendment to the Law on Prevention of Foreign Broadcasting Entity Harm to State Security seeking to extend the aforementioned temporary provision until the end of November was published for public comment. In parallel, a day earlier, the Knesset approved in a preliminary reading a private member’s bill submitted by MK Ariel Kellner to turn the temporary provision into a standing order.

Zulat’s position is that there is no place or justification in a democratic regime for extending such a temporary provision. The proposed legislation seeks to turn into permanent law powers that are excessive to begin with. It is therefore unacceptable and illegal, since it clearly and substantially harms democracy and fundamental constitutional rights, has no worthy purpose and is disproportionate, given that there are other, less harmful means to achieve the goal of upholding state security.

The government has been operating in several ways simultaneously and doing everything in its power, in a hit-and-miss fashion, to extend the draconian and undemocratic powers it wrested for itself under the Temporary Provision and Emergency Regulations, indefinitely and totally unrelated to the state of emergency, in order to impose restrictions on the free media in Israel. Although these were depicted as designed to ward off harm to state security by specific media outlets like Al-Mayadeen and Al-Jazeera, they clearly constitute a slippery slope since both the Emergency Regulations and the Temporary Provision also sanction steps against other foreign channels whose broadcasts may not conform to Israel’s PR line. A first example was the use of these powers vis-à-vis the AP press agency.

In addition, the private bill seeks to confer upon the Minister of Communications extraordinary sweeping powers to order government entities “in charge of the subject” to stop the broadcasts of a “channel.” There is no doubt that this is an extremely broad and general formulation that includes no limits or restraints. This vagueness appears to indicate that the proposed legislation would confer upon the minister extremely broad powers to instruct government agencies to block specific content on YouTube, Facebook, or similar social media platforms where the “channel” can be viewed. This type of restrictions on the Internet and social media platforms is accepted practice only in dictatorships and totalitarian regimes.

These far-reaching legislative measures approved by the government in the midst of war confer upon the political echelon the authority to stop the operations of foreign broadcasters in Israel and to block people’s access to news that interests them and to varied information, including material that is inconsistent with the government’s narrative or is not aired on Israeli media outlets. Such dispositions would very adversely affect freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the free media, and the right to diverse and independent information.

There is no ignoring the fact that the proposed amendment and private bill are but one in a series of extreme legislative moves being promoted these days, often under the guise of “security needs,” which when added up reflect the government’s effort to hijack the free media in Israel amid destruction of the Fourth Estate, the mainstay of a democratic regime, in pursuit of its quest to carry out a regime revolution.