Letter from Ruth Matar (Women in Green) Jerusalem
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Dear Friends,
The above is a purely rhetorical question on my part. I believe the Olmert Government may well harbor evil intent.
It is EXTREMELY important that you carefully read the following article by Greer Fay Cashman, and the Editorial, published in the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, June 6th.
IBA cuts may force English TV, radio news off the air
By Greer Fay Cashman
Although English is the most universal language in the world, it may very well disappear from Israel’s air waves – at least on a temporary basis.
The Israel Broadcasting Authority’s Management Committee is due to vote next Monday on a cost-cutting emergency plan that would close down most Channel 1 and Israel Radio programs, including the IBA News in English and the English radio news.
Steve Leibowitz, editor of Channel 1’s English IBA News, was informed by senior management on Tuesday that all programming with the exception of Hebrew language news will be suspended for an indefinite period of time to save on costs.
Employees on collective wage agreements and personal contracts will continue to be paid their basic salaries, but will have to take leave. Freelancers would be the most hard-hit by the plan.
The absence of staff at the IBA premises will have an immediate cost-saving effect on regular expenses such as maintenance, electricity and telephone as well as the extras involved in program production costs.
IBA spokesperson Linda Bar confirmed that at its meeting last Monday, the IBA Management Committee decided to postpone its vote on the administration’s drastic proposal until heads of all IBA departments had been consulted.
“It’s a dire situation,” she said. “The IBA has never faced a crisis of such proportions.”
Bar told The Jerusalem Post that in the event the proposal is accepted, the only remaining programs on Channel One would be Mabat, Seeing the World and Politika.
Radio stations Reshet Bet, Reshet Gimmel and Radio 88FM would remain operational because they bring in revenue, Bar said, but foreign language and culture programs are likely to disappear.
Leibowitz, who has mounted an intensive lobby within the IBA and beyond, said that while he understood that the IBA was facing a crisis, there were at least two important reasons for not axing the IBA News. One is that outside sources have contracted to broadcast the programs abroad, which means the news broadcasts bring in income, and the other is that IBA News provides the world with a window on Israel and is an important hasbara (advocacy) resource.
On IBA News, Israeli spokespeople can rebut charges made by people who misunderstand or are opposed to Israel’s policies. To close down IBA News, however temporarily, “is like shooting yourself in the foot,” Leibowitz said.
A radio broadcaster suggested that closing down broadcasts was not only outrageous, but possibly illegal, as the IBA Law mandates broadcasts for immigrants.
Furthermore, broadcasts in a language they speak are essential for foreign diplomats and other international representatives in Israel.
IBA staff who could be seriously affected by the implementation of a partial blackout on public broadcasting have very little recourse. Since the resignation of former MK Eitan Cabel (Labor), the IBA has been left without a caretaker. Cabel’s portfolio has reverted to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – a conflict of interest, as Olmert is also acting finance minister.
Nonetheless, Leibowitz and news anchor Leah Zinder have lobbied the Prime Minister’s Office, the Foreign Ministry and the office of Acting President and Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik.
As a member of the IBA Management Committee 17 years ago, Itzik was instrumental in pushing through the creation of an English-language news department at Israel Television.
Olmert’s spokeswoman Miri Eisin told The Jerusalem Post that she was still familiarizing herself with the matter and would bring it to Olmert’s attention.
A senior staffer at the Foreign Ministry told the Post that he was gravely concerned over the possibility that English radio and television broadcasts would be taken off the air waves.
“Israelis like to complain about hasbara. They say not enough is being done,” he said. “But when something is being done, they don’t follow through.”
Meanwhile, Leibowitz and his colleagues are getting the message out and are meeting many outraged responses from native English speakers.
The Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, the British Olim Society and Telfed, the Association of South African Immigrants, have a mounted an e-mail protest campaign. Leibowitz said he had no doubt that other English-speaking groups would follow suit.
Leibowitz was a founding member of the IBA News team along with the late Steve Edwards, who died exactly two years ago. On Friday, a memorial service will be held for Edwards at Kibbutz Ma’aleh Hahamisha, in which friends and colleagues will not only eulogize him, but – fearing the worst – will begin advance eulogies for English-language news programs or, on a broader scale, for public radio and television.
****
Editorial, Jerusalem Post, Wednesday June 6, 2007
Losing our voice
There soon may be no Israeli-generated English news broadcasts on the air – not on the radio and not on television. This would be the upshot of an expected adoption of a package of emergency measures by the management committee of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) next week.
The IBA has grown increasingly insolvent over the years, as successive governments slashed their contributions to its budget, while the fee-paying public has been covering diminishing portions of the costs of keeping public broadcasting afloat and functioning.
The threat to Israel’s only English-language broadcasts didn’t arise from specific insensitivity to this one branch of IBA operations, but from an overall near-collapse.
In fact, the IBA may all but shut down. Gone, at least temporarily but possibly indefinitely, will be all of its radio stations apart from 88FM, Reshet Gimmel and Reshet Bet, the popular and money-making advertising powerhouse.
All foreign language broadcasts, however, will be suspended, with the striking exception of news in Arabic.
On TV, the debacle is no less significant. Channel 1 will discontinue all original programming. Only the news will survive, padded by reruns and imports. Even the weekend news magazines will disappear. And as mentioned, so will the entire English news broadcasting division.
IBA’s full-blown crisis is a matter of grave concern and one which involves the controversial issue of public broadcasting. Israeli governments’ attitudes have been too extreme – either maintaining a monopoly or starving public broadcasting by denying it commercial income and/or budgetary sustenance. At the same time it’s disingenuous to ignore the featherbedding and other forms of waste that gradually destabilized the IBA. Whatever the cause, however, the IBA teeters today on the brink of outright collapse.
That acknowledged, an exception for English news broadcasts is nonetheless no less sensible and necessary than for Arabic news.
Like Arabic, English news serves a special purpose. Moreover, English news most likely influences greater audiences than the Arabic. Keeping Israel’s voice in Arabic on the airwaves remains indisputably rational, but the need for Israeli news in the language that most of the world, not to mention much of the Jewish world, speaks is no less vital.
These are the broadcasts to which diplomats, visiting business people, foreign correspondents and tourists listen to and watch.
Unlike many other IBA enterprises, English news also generate income through rebroadcasts, for payment, by a host of Christian channels abroad (including METV) as well as Internet sites. This offers yet another avenue for the Israeli viewpoint to be heard in a world that otherwise is exceedingly unsympathetic, if not altogether hostile.
Israel gets too few opportunities to present its perspective overseas. For Israel to thus undercut its own obvious interest boggles the mind.
If anything, IBA’s English broadcasts ought to be expanded, not cancelled. Yet the IBA is hardly all Israel needs to get its word out. We need look no further for evidence of this than to last summer’s Second Lebanon War.
The Winograd Committee has exhaustively documented flaws in military and civilian leadership and decision making, yet it ignored one critical arena: the war of ideas. While the committee did clearly criticize the government’s failure to include the Foreign Ministry, from Tzipi Livni on down, in its decision making, it did not take the next logical step and document the complete lack of a media strategy during the war.
This egregious oversight in its own investigation should be corrected by the committee before releasing its final report. If it does so, we expect that they will conclude that, while tremendous attention is paid to shaping coverage in the domestic media, both the IDF and the government had, and have, no serious and systematic efforts to shape real-time international coverage of Israel’s actions.
Military contests are only one facet of the challenges Israel faces. Waging a convincing battle for hearts and minds overseas is essential. In this inherently crucial conflict, Israel must not lose any outlet for its voice, especially not the IBA’s voice in English.
****
Dear Friends,
My Co-Chair (and daughter-in-law), Nadia Matar, and I have discussed Olmert’s possible intentions, and reached the following worrisome conclusion:
Olmert is trying to do exactly as his mentor, Ariel Sharon, did with regard to Arutz Sheva. (Arutz Sheva is the broadcasting station which tries to cater to hundreds of thousands of both secular and religious nationalistic populations.)
In 2003, Ariel Sharon, who then was the Prime Minister of Israel, shut down all radio broadcasts from Arutz Sheva. Now you can only get Arutz Sheva through the Internet.
The reason that Ariel Sharon shut down Arutz Sheva was to deprive a large part of both the Israeli and world-wide populations of information regarding his plan to “disengage” from Biblical Gaza and Samaria communities, and to expel Jews from their homes there. Unfortunately, Sharon was able to execute his disengagement and expulsion plan in August of 2005.
Olmert is more than happy to follow Sharon’s example. As I revealed in a previous article of mine, it was he who had convinced Ariel Sharon to disengage from Gush Katif and Samaria! http://181818.org/green/blog/index.php?mode=viewid&post_id=156&PHPSESSID=31e9c6128affcd-55k
Olmert and his orientation have proven to be a tragedy for the Jewish People.
As you can deduce from Cashman’s article, the Israel Broadcasting Authority staff could be seriously affected by the implementation of a general blackout on public broadcasting. However they have very little recourse. “SINCE THE RESIGNATION OF FORMER MEMBER OF KNESSET EITAN CABEL (LABOR), THE IBA HAS BEEN LEFT WITHOUT A CARETAKER. CABEL’S PORTFOLIO HAS REVERTED TO PRIME MINISTER EHUD OLMERT- A CONFLICT OF INTEREST, AS OLMERT IS ALSO ACTING FINANCE MINISTER”!
Closing down Broadcasts is not only outrageous, but possibly even illegal, as the IBA Law mandates broadcasts for immigrants. Also, Broadcasts in the language they speak are essential for foreign diplomats and other international representatives in Israel.
The IBA staff is lobbying the Prime Minister’s office, the Foreign Ministry and the Office of Acting President and Knesset Speaker, Dalia Itzik.
The Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, the British Olim Society, and Telfed, the association of South African immigrants, have already mounted an e-mail protest campaign.
It is vitally important that all of us who believe in Freedom of Speech, and are aghast at Olmert’s continually expressed desire and intention to disengage from additional parts of Judea and Samaria, join in this battle.
Please contact Government officials:
*Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister
eulmert@knesset.gov.il
*Tzipi Livni, Foreign Minister:
zlivni@knesset.gov.il
*Shimon Peres, Vice Prime Minister:
shimonP@knesset.gov.il
*Dalia Itzik, Acting President and Knesset Speaker:
yor@knesset.gov.il
You should also send an e-mail to the Jerusalem Post Letters:
letters@jpost.com
Look at the record of Ehud Olmert, and you will surely hasten to take the time to send an e-mail to the above people. Let them know immediately, before it is too late, how strongly you feel about this very important issue!
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
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