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Karhi Advances Politicization of the Regulator to Gain Control Over the Broadcasting Market

On January 18, 2026, a session was held in the Knesset dealing with the structure of the search committee of the Broadcasting Authority. Adv. Ronen Reingold, representing Zulat, warned that the changes being promoted by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi constitute a deliberate attempt to politicize the regulator and create political control over the broadcasting market.

Adv. Reingold stated that one of the few models that has succeeded over the years in creating an effective buffer between politics and the regulator is the public broadcasting corporation model, based on a Selection Committee for the Board members, headed by a retired judge. Even if this model has weaknesses, Reingold emphasized, it is the most far-removed mechanism built in Israel to date, as evidenced by the communications minister’s many failed attempts to influence the corporation’s appointment proceedings.

In light of these failures, Karhi is now advancing a weakened regulatory model that deliberately restores the minister’s and his ministry’s control over the essence of the oversight mechanisms, in complete contradiction to the declaration that the bill’s purpose is to ‘distance politics from the world of content.’

Reingold emphasized that the broadcasting sector is a unique and sensitive field requiring particularly high institutional independence. He argued that placing the Director General of the Ministry of Communications – the minister’s personal appointment – at the head of the Selection Committee grants the minister de facto control over the agenda, work pace, and professional direction of the regulator, even if formally it represents ‘one voice out of five.’

Reingold also warned against misleading comparisons to other selection committees in the public service, noting that the relevant comparison is to the public broadcasting corporation model, in which a clear buffer was built, even if imperfect. Instead of strengthening this buffer, the current bill bypasses it and hollows out the principle of independence.

In the course of his remarks, Reingold clarified that the exceptional situation that arose, when the Communications Minister effectively paralysed the selection committee’s work, is a clear case of ‘hard cases make bad law’ – an attempt to address a one-off malfunction through a broad structural change, leading to the opposite outcome of weakening regulation and subordinating it to political considerations. Reingold proposed that instead, the public broadcasting corporation model should be returned to, with targeted strengthening of the working mechanisms, in a manner that would prevent the possibility of paralysing the selection committee without compromising the principle of independence.

Representatives of the Ministry of Justice announced in the committee that they accept the argument and expressed willingness to reconsider strengthening the corporation model as an alternative to the proposed model.

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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.