Last week, "Radiosh" was granted the tender of the recently created (read: "legalized") local broadcasts for Yehudah and Shomron (Judea & Samaria). The name is a contraction of "radio" and "yosh," which itself is an abbreviation for Yehudah weShomron. Finally, we are seeing the "A" (Azza) removed from YeSh"A. Although I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
Interestingly enough Radiosh was the only candidate.
As you would imagine, much of Left is up in arms.
Gush Shalom spokesman Adam Keller said that Radiosh violated the specifically non-political character of state-licensed commercial radio.
"This station will broadcast messages in favor of settlement, and that's a radical departure from the state policy for regional radio stations. If licenses are being given by the state to the extreme Right for the creation of political radio stations, then the Left should get a license, too." (JPost)
Um,...Hello?! The Left should get one, too? They already have, like all the rest, with few exceptions such as Radio Breslov and the Sh"aS radio station.
Surprisingly, not all Left-wingers are against the idea.
Arutz 7 (Hebrew) reports that Moti Raz of Peace Now believes that everyone has a right to have a radio station which expresses its community's political views, whether it is Arutz 7 or Arutz 77. The issue for him is that it should be legal.
The general manager of the new "Settler Radio Station" Yehoshu'a Mor-Yoesf. You may recognize his name. He is the former YeSh"A Council spokesman from Ofra, who shaved his beard in an attempt any associations with being "one of those extremists." He resigned his position with the YeSh"A Council three years ago, initially denying the rumor that he was to accept the position of spokesman for the Foreign Ministry under Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. The "official" reason he resigned was in protest of the YeSh"A Council's call to disobey the Israeli government's "Disengagement Law."In other words, Mor-Yosef was against disobeying an evil, anti-Torah law, because it was a dictate of the "almighty" government.
After the K'far Maimon incident, where the YeSh"A Council's collaboration with the illegitimate, Expulsion government became apparent to even the most naive Jew, we all knew that the YeSh"A Council's words were meaningless (although not the first time) only comprising an act of pseudo-rebellion. Surely Mor-Yosef must have known this. And, in case you were wondering, Mor-Yosef did indeed step up to the plate as the Foreign Ministry spokesman.
The rumor which cannot be confirmed is that his position would give him the power to protect his hometown of Ofra from any future expulsion of Jews and destruction of towns. Obviously, that power was insufficient to protect Ofra's neighboring hilltop community of Amona, assuming an attempt was made.
Incidentally, Amona has placed an ad looking to hire a mazkir (town manager). It is such a small community, I wondered what they would do with a full-time mazkir. The ad said that the position was full-time. The government has place a freeze on housing. Some mazkirim manage two, if not three small towns such as Amona. I find it curious that Amona requires a full-time mazkir, and that the residents can even afford one. The only thing that can be gleaned from this is that Amona wants independence from Ofra. But with the likes of Mor-Yosef I cannot blame them for seeking autonomy in order to follow their own path.
But I digress....
Guess who is the operator of this new local Yehudah and Shomron radio station? You may recognize his name, too. The Arutz Sheva's Hebrew weekly "b'Sheva" reposrts that it is none other than Tzvi Shalom. And you guessed it. He IS a relative of former FM Silvan Shalom, his brother in fact.
It is not clear to me as to why Arutz Seva (Israel National Radio) did not apply. Did they already know they would not be granted the tender, and thus did not bother? Was Arutz Sheva told not to bother?
In his own words, he said that "Radiosh would be nationalist, patriotic and pro-Zionist, but it would also be open-minded and pluralistic" (JPost).
Adam, are you seriously worried that "Radiosh" will be a representative of the right-wing voice in Yehudah and Shomron?
With Mor-Yosef in charge, you shouldn't be.
Just exactly whose views will be expressed on Israel's "Radiosh?" Yo"Sh's? Or Israeli Radio's?
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Thanks to Chaim Ben-Pesah for pointing the way to the "with beard" photo. Check out his article "The Traitors Who Run The Yesha Council."
What is happening should be obvious to all. The names that have appeared behind RadiYosh are the Council of Jewish Settlements. They are the same ones who have consistently made strident statements, bordering on extreme, marginalizing the "settler" population as "extremist fanatics" and then caved in to the government's positions. Every person who has headed up Mo'etzet Yesha has left to go straight into a senior government position. One became the Spokesman for the Foreign Ministry which, if I am not mistaken, requires a period of probation, by whatevername, of three years. That means that for the entire time that he served as Director of Mo'etzet Yesha, he was on probation for the Foreign Ministry. And the person who directed strategy for the opposition to the expulsion from Gush Katif and Northern Shomron left Yesha to become the campaign manager for Shaul Mofaz, who had been the Minister of Defense who carried out the expulsion. For whom did he strategize all along?
ReplyDeleteAfter a lot of strident rhetoric, Mo'etzet Yesha came to support the surrender of Hebron, saying that they folded because the USA agreed to guarantee the agreement. The US, of course, agreed to no such thing. And even if they had, is it the purpose of the State of Israel to become an American protectorate?
In fact, the purpose of Mo'etzet Yesha from its inception has been damage control for the government. That is why the government founded it. That is why the government subsidizes it. That is why the government takes in its senior officers into high positions in the government. They are there to serve the government by misleading the settlers and the rest of what is called, the "right wing," to dissipate its energies in useless activities like demonstrations and protests and has never organized them into working groups in each locale, nor has it ever taken up materials or strategies that have proven effective, such as the panim el panim activities that so shook the government that the Minister of Justice (Tsippi Livni, let's remember) had the police violate the law and the human rights of the people and abrogate their freedom of speech by stopping the buses and preventing them from going to talk to people in the center of the country. Yesha would have nothing to do with that. Nor would they have the Orange folks hang around Kfar Maimon any longer. They were having too profound an effect on the soldiers and on the country. Yesha had them spread out all over the country, marching in the summer sun toward Gush Katif but then Yesha sent them home. Without Yesha, they might well have pushed through the barrier and marched to Gush Katif. Yesha's job isdamage control.
Understand, therefore, why the government gave the monopoly radio station in Yosh to Mo'etzet Yesha. They will speak for us. They will be our voice, even though we have finally seen how they betrayed us in the great Expulsion. Understand that it will be the Jewish Section of the Shabak purporting to speak on your behalf.
Jack Golbert
so a radio station that promotes shalom, as if he didn't have enough media doing that already with his family ties and will help keep things pacified for what's meant to be the next wave of expulsions
ReplyDeleteSK, it's something like that.
ReplyDeleteI have receive conflicting reports from my sources at Arutz Sheva (Israel National News).
Some say that A7 was in on the deal from the beginning, and may merge with "Radiosh."
Others aren't so sure.
What is true is that everything was very hush hush at A7 throughout the application process. No one was talking about why A7 didn't apply. The assumption was that they wouldn't have a chance in hell, so why should they bother?
Mor-Yosef is in the same "settler" category with MK Schneller, Lieberman, and Goldstein.....confused.
...and I'm being kind.
I have no evidence to support any government plots to quell the masses by controlling the content of "Radiosh."
However, Mor-Yosef's name has raised more than a few eyebrows.
Tzvi Shalom unlike his brother is alright. What happened with the station is that Arutz Sheva realisticly believed it would be impossible for us to get a tender, so our people separated from Arutz Sheva and applied for the tender, so its basically Arutz Sheva by another name.
ReplyDeleteTwo words:
ReplyDeleteMor-Yosef
If A7 merges in, then it will go from partly useless to completely useless
ReplyDeleteSultan, what do you have against Arutz Sheva?
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that the Arutz 7 people are prohibited from competing for the tender because they were convicted of the "crime" of running an "illegal" radio station? I do know that they were pardoned, but I don't know if that clears their record in this regard.
ReplyDeleteYehudit, I haven't not heard any additional information to complement my above comment. I suppose what you're saying is possible. I think that either A7 knew it wouldn't get the tender with the A7 name, or that the gov't knew it couldn't get away with giving it to the A7 name even if it thought it was the most logical choice.
ReplyDelete