The government's decision to close down Arutz Sheva's radio station in 2003 was a disgrace, Nobel Prize laureate Prof. Yisrael Aumann said Thursday at the Ariel Conference on Law and Media. “Taking down Arutz Sheva was a sign of ignominy, a black stain on Israeli democracy,” the mathematician said. “We grasped at formalistic excuses for carrying out a political act.”
“Expression in the media should not be limited,” he opined. “If there are people who want to deny the Holocaust, let them. It is wrong to forbid Holocaust denial as they do in Europe. Let everyone say what they want. The facts will speak.”
Arutz Sheva, which currently broadcasts solely through the Internet, was originally a radio station that broadcast on Israeli airwaves starting in 1988. It had a great impact on Israeli society and galvanized the religious and nationalistic public. The broadcast was transmitted from the ship Eretz Hatzvi in the Mediterranean Sea which anchored permanently off Tel Aviv's coast.
In February 1999, the Knesset passed a law legalizing the operation of Arutz Sheva, but the law itself was appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court, which then voided it. In October 2003, employees of Arutz Sheva were convicted of operating an illegal radio station and the station was shut down.
Arutz Sheva's lawyers protested that a similar radio broadcast ship, owned by leftist Abie Nathan, was allowed to operate unmolested for 20 years, but to no avail.