By Maayan Lubell and Emily Rose
JERUSALEM, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Israel's cabinet voted on Monday to shut down a popular national radio station, one in a series of measures by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition that critics see as blows to democracy.
Defence Minister Israel Katz had proposed that Army Radio, broadcasting since the early days of the state, will be shut down by March 1, 2026, in what he described as an attempt to preserve the military’s nonpartisan character.
Its original purpose, Katz said in a statement, had been to broadcast for Israel's soldiers but that with time it served as a platform for views that "attack the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) and the IDF soldiers themselves".
Army Radio is among two state-funded news outlets in Israel, the other being public broadcaster KAN that operates a television news channel, several radio stations and a popular digital platform. Both are editorially independent.
NETANYAHU COMPARES ARMY-OPERATED RADIO TO NORTH KOREA
Katz said an army-operated station broadcasting to civilians was an anomaly for any democracy. Netanyahu said in remarks to the cabinet session, "I think it exists in North Korea and maybe a few other countries, and we probably don't want to be counted among them."
Critics denounced the move, saying it would harm free speech.
"They want an obedient media, they don't want critical media," Anat Saragusti, who oversees press freedom for the Israeli Union of Journalists, said at a crisis conference attended by hundreds of journalists in Tel Aviv this month.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, an independent anti-corruption watchdog, said it has petitioned the Supreme Court against the government's decision.
The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), a non-partisan think tank, said that shutting Army Radio effectively wipes out half of Israel's independent public news broadcasts and that such a sweeping measure must be brought before parliament.
'BROAD AND WORRYING PATTERN'
"The decision to shut down a public media organisation is not an isolated move. It is part of a broader and worrying pattern of ongoing harm to Israeli democracy," IDI said in a statement published online.
Other plans by Netanyahu's coalition include a law that would expand a temporary emergency measure allowing for bans on media deemed a threat to national security, as well as a broad reform to the entire Israeli media market.
The law has already used to ban operations by pan-Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera in Israel during the Gaza war.
A flurry of bills by the nationalist-religious ruling coalition that were largely suspended during the two-year Gaza war included an overhaul of the judicial system, which sparked mass street protests in Israel.
Some of the bills have since been reintroduced by members of Netanyahu's coalition as Israel heads into an election year, and its prime minister is seeking an unprecedented mid-trial pardon from corruption charges, which he denies.
(Writing by Maayan Lubell; editing by Mark Heinrich)
