TEL AVIV — For 75 years, Israeli Army Radio has played a central role here in everyday life, broadcasting critical reporting and wide-ranging talk alongside entertainment. It has also provided a training ground for young journalists, some of whom later became prominent media figures.
But the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now pressing to shut down the popular state-funded, military-run public broadcaster, known as Galatz.
Netanyahu argues that military radio is more appropriate for a dictatorship such as North Korea than a democracy. Critics, however, see the effort as part of a broader offensive against media outlets that have criticized Netanyahu’s right-wing government. Since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel of Oct. 7, 2023, the government has increased its attacks on the news media, a campaign that appears to be growing ahead of national elections expected later this year.
Galatz — short for Galei Tzahal, Hebrew for IDF Waves — is a unit within the Israel Defense Forces staffed by soldiers and civilians who broadcast not only to troops but also the general public.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said in December that Galatz had “given a platform to members of Hamas, and attacked soldiers and the IDF.”
“Soldiers and civilians testified that they often feel the station does not represent them, does not give voice to them, and harms the war effort and national morale,” a committee appointed by Katz to examine Galatz reported. The government approved his proposal to take it off the air.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, which is a nonprofit advocacy group, the Union of Journalists and Galatz employees filed petitions to stop the closure. Israel’s Supreme Court put it on hold in December and this month ordered the government to respond by March 15.
Attorney Boaz Ben Zur, representing Galatz employees, called Katz’s remarks “wild, reckless, and verging on incitement.”
“We are in the twilight zone of Israeli democracy,” he told Israel’s Channel 12. “We have seen a wave sweeping the country, targeting the judicial system, the media, and [other] institutions — systematically weakening them.”
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, meanwhile, is promoting a larger overhaul of Israel’s media landscape. “There is a leftist monopoly on consciousness,” Karhi told the online news organization Walla last month. “The reform will open up the market of ideas.”
Among other measures, Karhi has proposed a new council to regulate the media for which he would appoint the chair and a majority of members.
Critics warn that the legislation could increase political interference in broadcasting and lead to the closure of additional news outlets. Galatz is already subject to political influence; its commander is appointed by the defense minister.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara called on the Supreme Court this month to hold an urgent hearing “due to concerns of damaging freedom of expression and freedom of press.”
The network of Galatz and its sister station, Galgalatz, was second in exposure here last year only to the Kan network of public radio stations, according to Kantar Media, the global market research group. Galgalatz, which broadcasts music and traffic, was the most listened-to station, according to Kantar’s TGI Survey; Galatz was third.
Journalists inside the network and out have been speaking out in its defense. “The Israeli government is asking to silence opinion and criticism,” Galatz journalist Rino Zror told the parliament’s Knesset Channel.
Aya Yadlin, a senior lecturer at Bar-Ilan University’s School of Communication, warned of “a broader move to reduce critical-independent voices and diminish institutions of knowledge and power.”
Israeli democracy is suffering a backsliding, Yadlin told The Washington Post, “in which one branch of government attempts to dismantle bodies of knowledge and oversight in other branches, shifting power to a single center.” She likened the effort to the Trump administration rolling back federal funding for public broadcasting in the United States.
“I do not think a military radio station should lead the media market in a democratic country,” Yadlin said. “However, in the broader context of what is happening in Israel, closing such a powerful media institution, that gave a voice to critical voices regarding the war and the release of the hostages, is a move of silencing criticism.”
News, satire and rock and roll
Galei Tzahal began broadcasting in 1950, two years after the founding of the state of Israel itself. It offered music and other entertainment, but the government and army saw it primarily as a tool to support the young nation. “The broadcast is necessary both for teaching Hebrew and for various military purposes,” said David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister.
The actress and comedian Rivka Michaeli, one of Galatz’s first personalities, remembers early broadcasts from an old school. “When it rained, it would leak into the studio,” she said. “We sat there many times with umbrellas.”
Michaeli joined the operation around Israel’s 1956 war with Egypt, when its mission included raising the morale of soldiers in the field and the wounded in hospitals. Galatz broadcasters spoke more naturally than their counterparts at Kol Israel, the country’s official state radio, she told The Post, and its programmers were more attuned to contemporary music. “I broadcast the great hit ‘Volare,’” she said, and hummed the chorus.
Eventually, Galatz added a news department. “It became an essential station, and it gained more and more listeners,” said Michaeli, now 87. “This station shaped me as a broadcaster. The very direct speech, less buttoned-up.”
Galatz became Israel’s leading school for communications. Its alumni include not only prominent journalists but also leading entertainers and members of parliament. Among them are the prominent news anchor Yonit Levi, the right-wing journalist Amit Segal and Ilana Dayan, who leads the program “Uvda” — Fact — the Israeli equivalent of “60 Minutes.”
“Galei Tzahal is the place that defined me,” Dayan said in an interview. As a 19-year-old soldier, she was broadcasting from a peace rally in Jerusalem when a grenade was thrown into the crowd. She stayed on the air, she said, for 36 straight hours. “Then I realized that this is what I want to do in life,” she said. “Galatz is the place where the greatest broadcasters of Israeli radio grew up, where the coolest radio programs of satire, rock and roll, and entertainment were created, as well as news and documentary radio.”
Dayan still broadcasts a weekly current affairs hour on the station. “In a deep sense, there are those who see the popularity alongside the military nature of Galatz as one of the most sophisticated and effective mechanisms of the Israeli military ethos — give the youth rock and roll, and they will give you their lives,” Dayan said.
‘It’s a strange creature’
The station’s critics have long argued against the IDF training future journalists, who are expected to critique it. Previous defense ministers and military chiefs of staff have also considered closing it.
“It should be obvious that a truly free and hard-hitting press can never exist under a military umbrella,” Galatz alumna Noa Landau, now the deputy editor in chief of Haaretz, wrote in 2021, before Netanyahu returned to office.
Dayan called Galatz an “anomaly,” but described it as “one of the abnormal masterpieces of Israeli-ness — like the kibbutz, the soldier-teachers, or the military ensembles — cultural assets that developed in a crooked way. It’s not normal, but it’s charming.”
“It’s a strange creature,” Michaeli agreed, “but its vitality is beyond doubt.”
So has been its reach. Shai Yadgar, who moved to New York two and a half years ago, listens to Galatz’s current affairs broadcasts each morning.
“I am very connected to Israel and very involved in what happens there,” Yadgar told The Post. “I listen to Galatz first and foremost for the broadcasters, the work they do, their ability to ask piercing questions, and to interview people from all ends of the political spectrum.”
Yadgar added: “It would be a disaster if Galatz were to close, or if the Israeli media had to fight for its right to exist freely, to ask questions, and to do journalistic work.”
During Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, Galatz reactivated old AM transmitters that could sometimes be heard in the tunnels under the enclave.
Hostages Daniella Gilboa and Karina Ariev were held by Hamas in Gaza for nearly 500 days. Hearing family members speaking on the radio, they told the Galgalatz program “Medina BaDerech,” gave them strength.
“In the days we heard you,” Ariev said, “you lifted our spirits.”
Shira Rubin contributed to this report.
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