Knesset bill would put Israel Hayom newspaper out of business
In what is clearly an effort to put the wildly successful Israel Hayom newspaper out of business, a group of six MK's has introduced a bill in the Knesset that would
limit the free distribution of newspapers.
The bill, which was proposed by MKs Eitan Cabel (Labor), Robert
Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu), Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home), Elazar Stern
(Hatnua), Ariel Atias (Shas) and Yoel Razvozov (Yesh Atid), seeks to
ensure "true and fair competition between newspapers."
Analysts predict the law is likely to cause a brouhaha in the
government, and that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will act to
prevent it from passing. The law's opponents argue that the bill, if
passed, could drastically change the balance of representative power in
the Israeli press.
Under the bill, every newspaper which is defined as one of the four
daily newspapers most widely circulated in Israel will be sold at a
"nominal value" - about 70% of the price of the cheapest and most
popular newspaper.
In addition, the bill would ban distributing free newspapers for more
than a six-month period - and require the price of each paper to be
printed prominently on the front page.
Media experts are expected to slam the bill for contributing to the
ongoing decline in the newspaper industry, which has made headlines over
the past several years as popular publications begin to disappear.
A report by the International Business Times in 2012 noted
that the newspaper industry has shrunk by 40% worldwide since 2002, and
that it continues to decline at a rate of 6.4% per year. Many attribute
the decline to the ubiquitousness and ease of internet news sources.
Israel Hayom is distributed free at traffic intersections, and makes its money off advertising. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in Israel, displacing Yedioth Aharonoth within a couple of years of its founding. It is owned by Sheldon Adelson, and American Jew with a huge interest in Israel, who also owns casinos in the US. Adelson is also a big supporter of... Binyamin Netanyahu.
Pass the popcorn....
Labels: Ariel Atias, Ayelet Shaked, Binyamin Netanyahu, Eitan Cabel, Elazar Stern, freedom of the press, Sheldon Adelson, Yisrael HaYom
Government nearly falls over conversion spat, then cuts off nose to spite face
The Jewish Home party vented its anger over a bill that would
remove power over conversions from the Chief Rabbinate by having all its non-minister MK's walk out of a no-confidence vote. After the government survived the no-confidence vote by four votes, the coalition chairman removed all of the Jewish Home's bills from the agenda, including party leader Naftali Bennett's bill to
lower food prices.
A Bayit Yehudi spokesman explained that the party's MKs walked out on
Bennett's instructions, after a new article was added to the
controversial conversion bill without the party's prior knowledge.
"The
Bayit Yehudi never learned coalition discipline or commitment to
agreements," Levin said following the walkout. "I will not give in to
extortion."
On Tuesday, a fierce political fight broke out between
Bayit Yehudi and its coalition partners over the bill on reforming the
conversion process, authored by MK Elazar Stern of Hatnua.
The
bill proposes to allow chief municipal rabbis to establish a rabbinical
conversion court in conjunction with one of the centrally appointed
rabbinical conversion judges and any other rabbi ordained by the Chief
Rabbinate.
A senior Bayit Yehudi source said on Tuesday that “if [
Justice Minister Tzipi] Livni was promised that her party’s conversion
bill would pass in exchange for voting for the three major bills
[ultra-Orthodox conscription, electoral reform and referendum on land
concessions], then that was an unfounded promise. We’re sorry someone
made a promise to her, but it’s not our problem.”
The source added that party will vote against the coalition if the Stern conversion bill goes to the plenum.
“A conversion bill will not pass without the support of the Religious Services Ministry,” the source said.
Which paragraph in this bill did the Jewish Home party
not know about?
Labels: Chief Rabbinate, Elazar Stern, Jewish converts, Jewish Home party, Jewish law, Naftali Bennett, Tzipi Livni
Will the 'Jewish Home' party listen to their rabbis?
Last week, I reported that the quid pro quo for the Tzipi Livni party's support for the three bills that were rammed through the Knesset last week (electoral reform, 'equal burden' and referendum) was that the coalition would support a bill introduced by MK Elazar Stern of the Tzipi Livni party that would essentially
strip the Chief Rabbinate of its power over conversions. At the time, I asked:
Given that the 'Jewish Home' party regards itself as the primary
proponent of the idea that the state institutions of the State of Israel
(qua State) [have] religious significance, is the 'Jewish Home' party
actually going to support this bill?
On Wednesday morning, we got part of the answer. Their rabbis definitely will not support the bill. The 'Jewish Home' party's rabbis met this morning with Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef (the son of Rav Ovadiah Yosef zt"l, the founder of the Shas party) and agreed that the Chief Rabbinate will not recognize what it's calling "
Stern's conversions" (link in Hebrew). But the bill passed the legislation committee of the Knesset on Wednesday morning.
Rabbi Yosef said that conversion will continue to be decided only based upon halacha (Jewish law) as determined by the Chief Rabbinate. According to Rabbi Yosef, the Knesset has nothing to say about conversion, and they are fooling people by saying otherwise. The result, should this bill pass, would be the administration of
Sifrei Yuchsin (Lineage Books), without which it would be virtually impossible to marry here.
The rabbis signed a joint declaration saying that they would oppose the law. Tens of amendments, mostly introduced by MK Orit Struck (Jewish Home) were rejected. But Struck and MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) have demanded a revote, and so a revote must take place.
No word yet on how close the vote was in the Knesset legislation committee or who voted for or against - Israel Radio is on strike.
Will the 'Jewish Home' party listen to its rabbis?
UPDATE 1:23 PM
Reader
Romy L points me to this post on Arutz Sheva's website on Tuesday, which claims that the
'Jewish Home' party is opposed.
The religious-Zionist Jewish Home responded by saying that the move
contradicts the Coalition agreement that stipulated that the Conversion
Law would be coordinated with the Chief Rabbis and the Ministry of
Religions. The Jewish Home is threatening to vote against the
Coalition's position in all of the votes that remain to be held in the
Law, Constitution and Justice Committee until the end of the Knesset's
winter session.
The winter session ends next week, however.
A threat to vote against the coalition for a week seems kind of empty.... But how quickly can we introduce a bill to repeal the 'equal burden' law?
Heh.
Labels: Chief Rabbinate, Elazar Stern, Jewish converts, Jewish Home party, Jewish law, Naftali Bennett, Tzipi Livni
