On January 28,2026, a hearing was held before us on the petitions, after which, in our decision of February 2,2026, we ordered the issuance of an order nisi, stating as follows:
"An order nisi is hereby issued instructing the government respondents to come and give a reason as to why Government Decision No. 3661 of December 22,2025, regarding the closure of the Galei Tzahal broadcasting station, will not be revoked.
Without exhausting, the affidavit of reply will focus on the arguments concerning the correctness of the decision-making process and the manner in which the discretion is exercised within it..."
Subsequently, on May 26,2026, a hearing was held before us on the objection to turning the order nisi into an absolute order.
The arguments raised on behalf of the petitioners in their petitions and heard by their counsel in the hearings overlap to a large extent, both between the petitioners themselves and throughout the various stages of the proceeding. This is also true with regard to the arguments raised by the Attorney General and on behalf of the Government Respondents in the preliminary responses, in the affidavits of reply and in the hearings before us. Therefore, the petitioners' arguments will be presented below, in consolidation, over all stages of the proceeding, while the differences between them, if any, will be emphasized only to the extent necessary; Afterwards, the position of the Attorney General will be presented, also consolidated throughout the stages of the proceeding; Finally, the government's respondents' arguments will be presented, also in consolidation.
The Petitioners' Arguments
- First, the petitioners claim that a decision to close the station requires primary legislation by the Knesset, and therefore the decision made by the government was made without authority. In the framework of this argument, the petitioners make two fundamentally different arguments: one, that the decision to close the Galei Tzahal station, in terms of its nature and essence, is a preliminary arrangement that must be determined by primary legislation. In this context, it is claimed that Army Radio is one of the only two public radio stations in Hebrew that broadcasts current affairs nationwide, and is listened to by close to a million Israelis every day. Therefore, it is argued, its closure will remove a significant voice from the public broadcasting map and will reduce public broadcasting on the radio in half - a matter that amounts to a material violation of freedom of expression.
The second is that although Army Radio was established by a government decision in 1950, over the years various aspects of its activity were regulated by primary legislation, to the point that the station allegedly acquired a status that requires its closure to be done by primary legislation only. This is because its regulation in primary legislation should be seen as an expression of the legislature's position that the station should be treated as a body established in the first place by legislation, and hence the closure of the station can only be done in this way. It was also argued that the closure of the station by a government decision would lead, de facto, to the cancellation of legislative provisions.
- Second, the petitioners claim that there were significant flaws in the process of making the decision to close the station, from the stage of establishing the advisory committee, through the provision of its recommendations and ending with the government's decision. As to the very establishment of the advisory committee, the petitioners claim that the committee was established from the outset with the aim of reaching a predetermined result - the closure of the station. The petitioners further claim that the Advisory Committee was established only two years after the Zamir Committee, without any material change in the circumstances, in the period of time that has elapsed, that would justify the establishment of another committee on the same subject, a matter that in itself supports the conclusion that this is a futile proceeding intended to reach a predetermined goal.
The petitioners further claim that the composition of the advisory committee is also severely flawed. Thus, unlike previous advisory committees that dealt with the issue, the current committee was not headed by a senior official from the defense establishment, and did not include senior representatives from the military, relevant government representatives, or journalists and media personnel with clear and relevant experience. It was argued that instead the composition of the committee included two members who have a clear political affiliation with the Likud party, and who in the past had publicly expressed critical positions toward the station. Moreover, the original chairman of the committee, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yiftach Ron-Tal, chose to resign after six meetings had already been held, due to concerns about a conflict of interest. According to the petitioners, Maj. Gen. (res.) Ron-Tal's participation in the hearings that preceded his resignation casts a shadow over the integrity of those hearings.