Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar said Monday that he believes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ultimately comply with a High Court of Justice ruling on the composition of the Second Authority for Television and Radio, a statement that appears to run counter to the government's own declaration made the night before.
Speaking on Kan Bet radio, Zohar said that as he knows the prime minister, Netanyahu will comply with the High Court ruling and there will not be a constitutional crisis. Zohar added that he considers a full constitutional crisis to be the start of a slippery slope, suggesting his own preference for the government to step back from confrontation with the court.
His comments came just hours after the government informed the High Court on Sunday that it would not carry out the court's ruling regarding the makeup of the Second Authority council. In a statement released Sunday night, the government said it had unanimously approved a proposal by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi and Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, declaring that it would not recognize any decision, approval, appointment, or action taken by the Second Authority council so long as the council does not meet the threshold conditions explicitly set out in law.
The government's decision followed a June 17 Supreme Court ruling that restored the previous government's Second Authority council to function, even though the number of sitting members had fallen below the minimum threshold required by law. The court had frozen government decisions from March that sought to install a new council chaired by Dr. Yifat Ben Hai Shegev, ruling that unique and exceptional circumstances justified preserving the outgoing council's functional continuity pending a final decision on the petitions.
Karhi defended the move sharply, saying that High Court justices are not the Knesset, and that a two thirds threshold is a legal requirement rather than a recommendation. Levin said the rule of law means the law binds everyone, including the courts. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also attacked the ruling, accusing the court of waging a targeted campaign against the national camp.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid called the government's declaration self disqualifying, saying a government that will not accept High Court rulings becomes, by that very act, an illegitimate government whose own rulings need not be accepted either. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett warned that non compliance with court rulings leads to anarchy in the streets and the unraveling of the state. Democrats party chairman Yair Golan described the decision as an opening shot ahead of the next election, arguing the government knows it cannot win at the ballot box and is instead waging war on the rule of law.
The Deputy Attorney General, Gil Limon, warned lawmakers Sunday that the same override logic could be applied in the future to any legal opinion or court ruling the government finds inconvenient. The Journalists Organization said the declaration was transparently aimed at blocking the sale of Channel 13 to a group of technology entrepreneurs, a deal the outgoing Second Authority council had been expected to approve, and warned that the government was normalizing a systematic violation of the law.
At the center of the dispute is the pending sale of Channel 13 to a group led by tech figure Asaf Rappaport, an approval that would fall to the very council the government now says it will not recognize. It is the first time an Israeli government has formally stated it will not comply with a High Court ruling, though the state has in practice already been ignoring separate court rulings on Haredi military conscription. Zohar's remarks Monday leave open whether that formal declaration will translate into an actual refusal to implement the court's order once tested in practice.
