Attorney Yoram Sheftel on Friday condemned Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein for giving bankrupt Channel 10 a six-month reprieve of closure on Tuesday night.
That move came after earlier this week it was announced that Channel 10’s state provided guarantees would be foreclosed, two years after the Knesset extended Channel 10’s broadcasting franchise for a two year period while giving it a loan to cover its debts.
Writing in his weekly Hebrew column for Arutz Sheva, Sheftel said "the greatest scandal is that this morning we turned on the TV to Channel 10, and still saw the Channel 10 terrorist gang broadcasting, despite that according to law they are forbidden from doing so."
"Based on what did the attorney general dare force an extension of a half-year for the broadcasters of Channel 10?" asked Sheftel. "For years they haven't paid their 33 million shekel (nearly $8.5 million) debt, and there's no argument that they need to pay and haven't done so."
Sheftel reasoned "that's enough to stop their broadcasting immediately at the end of 2014. The first request to submit a request for a fixed permit is to pay, and that didn't happen. Channel 10 can't even present the required financial stability, because there's no stupid investor willing to fund this post-Zionist terror gang, who during Operation Protective Edge challenged the terrorists from Hamas."
Rounding on Weinstein, Sheftel added "this attorney general is using his leftist worldview for bad, so that this channel will continue broadcasting only because of its leftist political nature."
"This is trampling on the law, the attorney general is not above the law; he tramples the law for political reasons that have nothing to do with the law," accused Sheftel.
The attorney concluded "it repeats itself every few months, the deadline comes, they don't meet the requirements of the law and then each time they find some reason that some guy can get involved and trample the law to allow them to continue broadcasting."