Search
Close this search box.

עב

Search
Close this search box.
Facebook Twitter Instagram

עב

State Comptroller Committee Debate: The Closure of Galei Tzahal – Another Station in the Dismantling of the Free Press

On January 27, 2026, Bentzi Sikora, Zulat’s policy advocate, participated in the State Comptroller Committee session on the closure of Galei Tzahal (IDF Radio). During the session, Sikora presented the closure of the station as part of a broad and systematic move to undermine the free press in Israel, and warned against the absence of systematic oversight of the accumulation of these steps – precisely on the eve of an election year.

In the session, we presented the closure of Galei Tzahal in the broader context of adoption of the Hungarian protocol for the elimination of the free press, as described in Zulat’s position paper, “Is Hungary Already Here? Destruction of the Free Press in Israel from a Comparative Perspective” comprising five elements:

1. De-legitimization of major journalists, through sustained incitement and portraying them as enemies of the public.

2. Takeover of public broadcasting, through legislation, regulatory pressure and politicization of appointment mechanisms – including repeated attempts to weaken the corporation and to close Galei Tzahal.

3. Regulatory and economic manipulation of the media market, including the use of government advertising budgets and proposals for structural changes to regulation, in ways that benefit media outlets subservient to the government.

4. SLAPP lawsuits by elected officials, intended to chill critical journalism.

5. Closure of foreign media outlets, through legislation and the exercise of emergency powers that harm freedom of expression and the press.

According to Sikora, the closure of Galei Tzahal is not an end in itself but another benchmark in the broad process of taking over the free press – a process that has already brought Israel to an unprecedented deterioration in the global press freedom ranking.

We therefore demanded that the committee and the State Comptroller conduct a systemic examination of the totality of measures in the media sphere, and examine the failures that have allowed – and continue to allow – the decimation of media independence, across all government ministries and authorities.

In an election year, the absence of effective oversight of media independence is not merely a regulatory failure, but a real threat to the fairness of the democratic process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRxtGpHFB7w&t=185s

Clipboard01.jpg

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.

פרופסור-אמריטה.jpg
 

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.

WhatsApp-Image-2020-05-17-at-20.39.21

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.

 

18076724_10154573442149677_1211984367607245921_o-1

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.