Israel today launched a new radio station for Jewish settlers living among some 2.5 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem. ”This station will focus on the nationalist camp and prove that there is demand in Israel for a different media that supports Zionist values and the Jewish people’s love of the land,” Yeshua Mor Yosef told AFP.
The radio station, called “The Waves of Israel,” was officially launched by Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon at a ceremony in the Givat Zev settlement near the West Bank town of Ramallah. ”It’s a great day for pluralism in the Israeli media and for the religious-nationalist audience, which has the right to be heard,” Kahlon said at the ceremony.
Mor Yosef was previously a reporter for the settler-run radio station Arutz 7, which was shut down by Israeli authorities in 2003 after several years of broadcasting without a legal permit. The new station will broadcast news and music in Israel and across the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War that are now home to half a million settlers.
According to an earlier report from Haaretz, the Israel Broadcasting Authority has installed four radio transmitters in West Bank settlements, which have had difficulty picking up IBA broadcasts. Several settlements, such as Ma’aleh Adumim, Beit El, Kiryat Arba and Ma’aleh Efraim, have not been able to receive IBA broadcasts for decades, or receive them partially. Drivers on roads to the settlements have on occasion been forced to listen to Palestinian radio, not being able to pick up Israeli transmissions.
MK Uri Ariel (National Union), who urged rectifying the situation, was notified yesterday that IBA installed transmitters for Reshet Bet 95.2, Reshet Gimmel 90.5, Reshet Moreshet (religious) 105.2 and Reshed Daled (Arabic) 93.7.
(Sources: AFP/Haaretz)
on Feb 23rd, 2010 at 13:31
It should be noted that these Israeli settlements, on Palestinian land, are illegal under international law. I guess these transmissions must also be of questionable international legality.