In addition, the Attorney General claims that the decision to close the station is unreasonable and disproportionate. It was argued that the decision did not give sufficient weight to freedom of expression and the press, and that it did not examine more proportionate alternatives, including those recommended by the Advisory Committee itself. In addition, the Attorney General also argues that weight should be given to the timing of the government's decision, a few months before the Knesset elections. This is because this intensifies the violation of freedom of political expression, a matter that requires increased caution that is not reflected in the decision.
- Government Respondents' Arguments
The Government Respondents, who will be represented in the petitions separately, argue that the petitions should be dismissed outright. In their view, the decision to close the station was made with authority; There was no defect in the procedures underlying its acceptance; This is a reasonable and proportionate decision; and the considerations underlying its acceptance are purely pertinent considerations. - As to the authority to order the closure of the station, the government's respondents claim that the normative basis for the government's authority to close the station is found in two complementary sources. The first source is the Basic Law: The Army, which states in section 2(a) that the army is subject to the government, and in section 2(b) that the minister in charge of the army on behalf of the government is the minister of defense. The second source is in section 2a(a) of the Military Justice Law, 5715-1955 (hereinafter: the Military Justice Law), which states that the instructions of the High Command, which are given by the Chief of Staff with the approval of the Minister of Defense, relate to "the organization of the army, the administration, the regime and its discipline and to ensuring its proper operation." These two sources, it is claimed, show that since Galatz is a military unit, the authority to close it is vested in the Chief of Staff, with the approval of the Minister of Defense. It was argued that, at least, since the government was the one who decided to build the station, it was the one authorized to close it, in accordance with section 15 of the Interpretation Law, 5741-1981 (hereinafter: the Interpretation Law), which states that authorization to issue administrative instructions also means authorization to change or cancel them.
In the meantime, The government's respondents reject the petitioners' argument that the multitude of legislative arrangements that have been enacted over the years with regard to the station show that it has acquired a status that requires its closure by primary legislation only. According to the government's respondents, these arrangements were enacted against the background of the station's existence and not in order to legitimize its very existence. In addition, the government's respondents reject the argument that the very existence of the protracted public debate over the question of the future of the station indicates that this is an arrangement that requires primary legislation, and notes that this question was already discussed and rejected in the Levin opinion, which determined that this is not a clear preliminary arrangement that necessitately requires primary legislation in order to change it.
- The government's respondents further claim that the administrative procedure that preceded the decision was strictly proper, and that the petitioners' arguments on this issue are based on factual errors, lack of familiarity with what is actually being done, and disagreement with the outcome of the proceeding, which is presented as a defect in the proceeding. According to the government's respondents, Minister Katz sought to conduct an orderly and in-depth process, and in addition to what was required, he appointed an advisory committee - despite the lack of a legal obligation to establish it. The committee held 19 meetings; heard dozens of stakeholders; appealed to the public and received thousands of responses; She also toured the Galatz and Galgalatz stations. At the end of its work, the committee submitted detailed recommendations that included an analysis of various alternatives, while along the way it was accompanied by the legal counsel of the defense establishment, who examined its composition and the proper conduct of its procedures and found no flaws - legal backing that also accompanied the submission of the recommendations to Minister Katz and the presentation of the decision to the government.
Individually, the government's respondents reject the arguments against the composition of the committee. The Government Respondents point out that in response to the Deputy Attorney General's request, the Legal Advisor to the Defense Establishment examined the political affiliation of the members of the Committee and determined that there was no legal impediment to their tenure, taking into account that their connections are not significant and their experience in the field of communications is rich and relevant. It was further argued that an attempt to disqualify a committee member due to professional remarks in his field of practice violates freedom of expression and the public interest in staffing committees by people with knowledge and expertise. With regard to the resignation of the original chairman of the committee, Maj. Gen. (res.) Ron-Tal, the government's respondents claim that it stemmed from his desire to remove doubt from lip service and not from a real conflict of interest, since the legal counsel was of the opinion that the alleged connection - his appearances as a commentator on a channel owned by someone who also owns a regional radio station - was far from being an improper conflict of interest.
- The claim that the decision was made for extraneous considerations is also rejected by the government respondents outright. It was argued that the decision to close the station was based on four main reasons: First, the anomaly inherent in the operation of a public radio station that broadcasts current affairs and politics content in a military framework. Second, the real damage to the IDF's state character stems from the fact that a military unit is engaged in the coverage and interpretation of controversial events, and is involuntarily involved in the arena of the stormy public skirmish. Third, the structural difficulty involved in the fact that IDF soldiers, who serve under legal obligation and are required to keep their political views outside the military framework, are actually engaged in coverage and reporting on controversial political issues. Fourth, the station's competitive distortion in the radio market, when it enjoys public budgetary support and uses the frequencies allocated to it from limited public resources, while competing for advertising revenues with private stations that are required to finance their operations independently.
According to the government respondents, the statements made by the government ministers regarding the need to close the station prior to the establishment of the committee do not indicate improper considerations: these are elected officials who are in charge of the administrative system who are entitled to formulate policy positions and express them publicly, and the mere existence of a position on such a policy does not pollute the administrative process whose purpose is to formulate a decision regarding the implementation of the policy.
- Finally, as to the reasonableness and proportionality of the decision, the government respondents claim that the advisory committee and the government examined various alternatives - privatizing the station, transferring it to the Public Broadcasting Corporation, subordinating it to the Ministry of Defense, and reducing the broadcasts of current affairs only - and that each of them was found to be suffering from substantial difficulties. Against this background, the government has reached the conclusion that closing the station is the only alternative that provides a solution to the difficulties faced by the committee, which are caused by the current affairs of a military media body. It was also claimed that the closure of the station had been considered in the past by every Minister of Defense and Chief of Staff who served in their positions, and that many public committees had recommended it. Therefore, according to the government's respondents, it cannot be said that this is an unreasonable or disproportionate decision as a matter by definition, since there is no dispute that the current situation is anomalous and has no parallel in any democratic country.
Discussion and Decision
- The Issue of Authority
- As stated above, the parties to this petition disagree on the question of whether the government was authorized to order the closure of the station or whether its closure requires primary legislation. Before I proceed to examine the arguments of the parties in this matter, I will note that both in the reply affidavit on behalf of the Government Respondents, and in the hearing of the objection held before us, counsel for the Government Respondents argued that since in the order nisi given before us the following was written - "Without exhaustion, the Reply Affidavit will focus on the arguments concerning the correctness of the decision-making process and the manner in which the discretion is exercised in its framework" - the first two petitions relating to the question of jurisdiction should be regarded as having been rejected.
Indeed, the rule is that the issuance of an order nisi limits the boundaries of the hearing of the petition, so that refraining from granting an order nisi with respect to certain heads of the petition means their rejection (see, among many: High Court of Justice 3227/20 Kliger v. Minister of Defense, paragraph 74 of the Vice-President's opinion v. Solberg [Nevo] (13.4.2026); High Court of Justice 5048/21 Association for Civil Rights in Israel v. The Government, paragraph 11 of the judgment of the Acting President A. Fogelman [Nevo] (18.7.2024); High Court of Justice 2335/19 Medical Cannabis Association v. Ministry of Health, paragraph 18 of the judge's judgment A. Baron [Nevo] (16.11.2021)). However, contrary to the reasoning of counsel for the Government Respondents, in our decision of February 2,2026, in which we ordered the granting of an order nisi in the petitions in question, the main petitions relating to the issue of jurisdiction were not removed from the agenda. All that was said in our decision (and even that "without exhaustion") He The government's responses will focus on arguments concerning the correctness of the decision-making process and the manner in which discretion is exercised in making it. Therefore, the question of authority is still on the table, and I will address it now.
- As I noted above, their position that the closure of the Galei Tzahal station can be carried out by way of primary legislation, and only in this way, the petitioners and the Attorney General base their position on two main arguments: first, that the decision to close the station constitutes, in terms of its nature and essence, a "preliminary arrangement", so that it can be made within the framework of primary legislation only. The second is that even though the station was established by a government decision, in that the Knesset enshrined various aspects relating to Galatz in primary legislation, the station's status was "upgraded" to the status of a body that was established in the first place by law.
Below I will discuss these arguments in their order, but first I would like to discuss the starting point for examining them: As stated, the decision to establish the Galei Tzahal station was made by a government decision. Therefore, the starting point for the discussion of the authority to order the closure of the station is, in my opinion, In the section 15 of the Interpretation Law, which states that: "Authorization to enact regulations or to issue an administrative order also means authorization to amend, modify, suspend or repeal them in the manner in which the regulations were enacted or the instruction was given.". The arrangement set forth in this section is based on the principle that "The mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted it." (Bavli, Ketubot 22:1), a principle that has acquired a strike in our view in a wide range of aspects (see, for example: High Court of Justice 3267/97 Rubinstein v. Minister of Defense, IsrSC 52(5) 481,540 (1998) (hereinafter: The Rubinstein Matter); Civil Appeal 6821/93 United Mizrahi Bank Ltd. v. Migdal Kfar CooperativeIsrSC 49(4) 221,408 (1995); Additional Hearing: High Court of Justice5967/10 National Insurance Institute v. CohenIsrSC 66(2) 240,282 (2013)). Accordingly To the section 15 to the Interpretation Law and the principle underlying it, since it was the government that ordered the construction of the station, it is authorized to order its closure.