Netanyahu's media 'reform' will sabotage Arab-Israeli press
Journalists claim that the decision to establish a second Arabic-language radio station in the north of Israel and not the south, where there is none, is driven by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy of weakening independent Arab-Israeli media outlets.
Senior Arab-Israeli journalists argue that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also heads the Communications Ministry, is not limiting himself to trying to weaken the Israeli media outlets that broadcast in Hebrew, but is also trying to harm Arab-Israeli journalism as well.
“We are very concerned about Netanyahu’s steps to dismantle the new Israel Broadcasting Corporation, and know that it won’t end there. We are the next in line,” a senior journalist from the Arab sector tells Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. The journalist explains that while written journalism in Arabic and the influential, popular Arabic radio station Radio al-Shams, which reaches the Northern District, have always enjoyed full freedom of the press, the future of these media outlets is now unclear. Netanyahu’s goal, he argues, is to scare the Arab press into enabling government control of its content “that does not toe the line of the Zionist narrative.”
