On Jun 19, 6:29 am, Tester wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/378j5w

(Jerusalem Post)

The Israel Broadcasting Authority's Management Committee has extended
the grace period for the administration and union workers to reach an
agreement on cost-cutting efficiency measures, but made it clear that
for as long as there is public broadcasting, foreign language programs
will remain on the air.

Only a few short weeks ago, all foreign language broadcasts with the
exception of Arabic, which is Israel's second official language, were
under threat of closure.

Hundreds of readers signed an online Jerusalem Post petition against
taking the English news on TV and radio off the air.

However, of all the cost-saving suggestions that have come to the
fore, the IBA Management Committee came to the conclusion that it was
completely unacceptable to close broadcasts on which large numbers of
the immigrant population, not to mention diplomats and overseas
listeners, rely.

Because the administration and the unions have not yet found the key
to a modus vivendi, the Management Committee decided to give them yet
another few days to come up with a formula that is acceptable to all
sides.

If they don't, IBA spokeswoman Linda Bar told The Jerusalem Post,
"there will be no salaries paid in August. The ball is in the court of
the unions."

Whatever agreement is reached, she said, would pave the way for the
implementation of the sweeping reforms proposed two years ago by the
Dinur Commission.

These reforms include changing the structure of the IBA, significantly
reducing the staff load, outsourcing non-news productions and
weakening political influence on the IBA.

However, no one is holding their breath over the Dinur reforms because
whoever is appointed to succeed Eitan Cabel as minister responsible
for the Broadcasting Authority may have different ideas and the whole
merry-go-round could start all over again as it has done in the past.

The essential difference is that this time, the IBA's sources of
income have been severely depleted due to heavy reductions in license
fees.

According to news reports on Israel Radio, none of the potential
ministerial candidates in the Labor Party is interested in picking up
the IBA portfolio, and if anyone is forced to take it under duress,
this will not bode very well for the IBA.


Essential Israeli government workers have a bad habit of striking and
leaving the government up the creek. In Gershom Gorenberg's book The
End of Days-about monotheistic religious endtimes beliefs-he mentions
that on some of his rounds to interview the who's who of the Third
Temple movement in Israel, who believe that the Dome of the Rock
should be demolished to make way for a new Jewish temple, the stench
from weeks of uncollected garbage was nearly unbearable thanks to a
protracted sanitation workers' strike that turned Jerusalem into a
landfill. If the unions would do that, they certainly would shut down
the IBA, which in Israel's case means NO radio or TV AT ALL,
internationally or domestically. The only radio or TV available would
be from satellites and Israel's neighbors, although why an Israeli Jew
would have a TV capable of recieving signals from Hamas or Hizbullah
is beyond me. I'm sure that should Israel TV go dark that the Muslims
will soon be broadcasting propaganda on the Israeli freqs. If you live
in Israel, get ready to explain to your neighbors why their evening
news is now Al Aqsa TV.