Galatz

Galei Tzahal, widely known by its acronym Galatz, is a nationwide Israeli radio network operated under the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and supervised by the Ministry of Defense. The station has broadcast continuously since 24 September 1950, carries news, current-affairs, music, traffic and educational programming, and operates a sister music-and-traffic channel, Galgalatz, established in November 1993. The 2025/26 cycle produced the most consequential institutional challenge to Galatz in its 75-year history: a Defense Minister decision and subsequent unanimous cabinet vote to close the station, frozen by High Court injunction and unresolved at the close of the SMM review window. After careful review, the Independent State-Funded and State-Managed (ISFM) classification carried over from the 2025 SMM baseline is maintained for 2026, but the broadcaster is now placed on explicit SMM watch-list status pending the outcome of the High Court litigation and any subsequent administrative or legislative action documented below.

Media assets

Radio: Galatz

Ownership and governance

Galatz is overseen by a civilian director, formally appointed by the Minister of Defense for a term of up to five years. While the role is editorial and administrative, the director carries a military rank, reflecting the station’s institutional position within the Israeli defense establishment.

Tal Lev-Ram, previously the military correspondent for Maariv newspaper, was appointed Galatz commander on 31 January 2024 by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, despite Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi’s January 2024 public opposition to his nomination. Lev-Ram succeeded Shimon Elkabetz, who had served as director from at least 2017 through the earlier part of the cycle. Lev-Ram has been the principal institutional voice opposing the government’s closure decision, publicly described the closure as “a real, regrettable and dramatic attack on the people’s army, on Israeli society and on freedom of the press in a democratic country”, and committed Galatz to challenging the closure decision before the High Court of Justice.

The 2025/26 cycle’s defining institutional event for Galatz was Defense Minister Israel Katz’s decision to close the station. Katz announced his intention to close Galei Tzahal on 12 November 2025, setting a final broadcast date of 1 March 2026, on the basis of an advisory committee report submitted that month. The cabinet unanimously approved the closure on 22 December 2025, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly endorsing the decision. Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara opposed the closure in an official memorandum warning that it lacked the necessary factual and professional foundation and “forms part of a broader move to undermine public broadcasting in Israel and to restrict freedom of expression”. The Israel Press Council, the Union of Journalists in Israel, the Movement for Quality Government and a group of six former Galatz commanders filed petitions before the High Court of Justice, arguing that Galei Tzahal’s operation rests on a statutory framework and closure could not be effected by administrative decision without new legislation.

On 29 December 2025, the High Court of Justice issued an interim order freezing implementation of the closure until a final ruling. In early February 2026, the Court issued a further conditional order requiring the government to file an affidavit by 15 March 2026 explaining why the closure decision should not be cancelled. Galatz continued broadcasting through the SMM 2025/26 review window. The closure litigation remained unresolved at the close of the review period, and Galgalatz, the sister music-and-traffic channel, was expected to continue operating, with the implementation team tasked with examining how to preserve its format and public character.

Source of funding and budget

Galatz’s funding has historically been reported as a mix of Ministry of Defense allocations and advertising revenue, with the precise split classified or unpublished. Earlier SMM-retained expert characterisations placed the Ministry of Defense share at over half of operating costs, with advertising revenue accounting for the remainder. The Defense Ministry advisory committee report submitted in November 2025 reached a different finding, putting the station’s annual budget at approximately ILS 52 million (US$16.1 million) with 87 per cent funded by advertising and sponsorships and the remainder from the Ministry of Defense; the committee was, however, the body that subsequently recommended closure, and its findings should be treated as one institutional reading of the funding architecture rather than as audited disclosure. The SMM 2025/26 review did not identify a published audited Galatz budget for 2025 or 2026.

Editorial independence

Galatz has historically been regarded as an editorially independent platform notwithstanding its military operation, with academic and SMM analyses characterising the station as supporting high-quality journalism and liberal pluralism in a polarised Israeli media environment. The 2025/26 cycle produced sustained external political pressure on Galatz, culminating in the closure decision, but did not produce documented evidence of editorial capture: Galatz’s editorial output during the cycle was openly contested by Defense Minister Katz on the ground that current-affairs programming “harms the war effort and morale” and “involves the IDF, against its will, in political discourse”, and the station’s command publicly opposed the closure decision and committed to legal challenge. SMM/MJRC content analysis from earlier in the cycle did not identify systematic pro-government bias, and the cycle’s documented institutional pattern is one of editorial resistance to government pressure rather than editorial alignment with government framing.

Galatz operates under internal professional standards and Israel’s ordinary military-censorship framework for national-security matters. Beyond Galatz’s internal professional standards and IDF chain-of-command structure, the main external safeguard during the cycle was judicial intervention through the High Court of Justice, which preserved the station’s operation against ministerial action; no independent statutory regulator or arm’s-length oversight body monitors Galatz’s editorial standards or compliance with its internal code.

AI and digital policy

Galatz has not published a public-facing institutional AI policy. Israeli national AI policy is pursued primarily through the Israel National AI Programme, with emphasis on innovation, public-sector and industrial adoption, infrastructure and governance rather than a public-broadcasting-specific generative-AI framework. No public-sector generative-AI framework specific to Galatz was identified during the 2025/26 review.

Classification rationale

Galatz remains classified as Independent State-Funded and State-Managed (ISFM) for the 2026 cycle, with explicit SMM watch-list status. The station continued to operate at the close of the review window under a statutory framework recognising its role, with an editorially independent newsroom and a command that publicly opposed the government’s closure decision and pursued legal remedies; the High Court of Justice froze implementation of the closure pending judicial review, preserving the station’s broadcasting status. However, the 22 December 2025 cabinet vote to close Galatz, the unresolved High Court litigation, the disputed funding split reported by the Defense Ministry advisory committee and the broader legislative and administrative pressures on Israeli public-service broadcasting documented in the parallel IPBC profile create a clear reclassification risk for the next cycle: if the closure proceeds, the outlet will leave the dataset, and if Galatz survives but its governance, budget or editorial authority is transferred to direct political control, SC or another revised classification may be required. For 2026, ISFM remains defensible because the legal and editorial safeguards had not yet been displaced at the close of the cycle.

June 2026