Veteran Arutz-7 broadcaster Kobi Sela reported today on some of Arutz-7's future plans. "As of last night," he said, "our ship - HaTzvi - began to be dismantled, and it will be sold. The radio programming as we have known it will continue on the internet for the next month, but not on the radio. The exact schedule for internet programming starting a month from now has not yet been determined. However, the revolution we started via the radio will not stop, but will merely be directed in other directions. Our internet services, both audio and written, will be expanded, as will our newspaper B'Sheva."
B'Sheva, which recently celebrated its first birthday, is distributed free of charge to over 115,000 households throughout the country. The Makor Rishon newspaper, which was recently purchased by Shlomo Ben-Tzvi of the Techelet concern, published an announcement on the eve of Yom Kippur asking forgiveness for any offense it may have caused Arutz-7 during a financial dispute last year.
Sela said that great efforts are being made to enable Arutz-7 to resume broadcasting, "but not with a special Arutz-7 law. Such a law was passed once, and the Supreme Court knocked it down - and will certainly do so again. Instead, efforts on the political/legislative front will concentrate on getting Israel to enact an 'open skies' policy, so that anyone who wants to, should be able to acquire a license to start broadcasting. There are also technological possibilities we are considering, such as satellite radio that we once started working on. The problem was that the company we were working with was threatened with an Arab boycott..."
Aviad Visuly, head of the Land of Israel organization in Haifa, said today that his office had received dozens of phone calls from people expressing their frustration at the closure of Arutz-7 and asking what they could do. "They simply feel detached," he said. "They're used to having Arutz-7 as a tool to focus all their pro-Land of Israel activities, or just to turn on the radio once in a while, and suddenly it's not there anymore. People barely believe it's actually happening. They feel detached. They say that something must be done, that it's just inconceivable that there is no voice to represent them." Visuly said that in the meanwhile, people are being asked to sign the on-line petitions in support of Arutz-7 - "www.petitiononline.com/arutz7/petition.html" in English, and "www.a7.org" in Hebrew.
David Shapira, head of Arutz-7's French department and one of the ten defendants convicted this week of running an unlicensed radio station, said that a major fax-and-letter writing campaign was launched this afternoon. The "task force" he heads says that the "best way to influence and quicken the resumption of Arutz-7 broadcasts is via a very significant public plea to the following decision-makers:
Minister of Communications Ehud Olmert - fax 02-6662909
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - fax 02-5664838
Minister Meir Sheetrit 02-5317697
Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz - fax 03-6976218
Education Minister Limor Livnat - fax 02-5602246
Justice Minister Tommy Lapid - fax 02-6285438
Public Security Minister - fax 02-5308039