Israeli Communications Minister David Amsalem warned a new Hebrew-language evangelical channel that he will work to take it off the air if it's proselytizing, Haaretz reports.
Shelanu TV has publicly stated it wants to “take the gospel of Jesus into the homes and lives and hearts of the Jewish people" through its new God TV channel.
Under the terms of its license, Shelanu is barred from broadcasting content that puts “undue influence” on viewers.
“We won’t allow any missionary channel to operate in the State of Israel — not at any time and not under any circumstances,” Amsalem, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, told Haaretz.
Shelanu is the Israeli affiliate of God TV, an international Christian media network that broadcasts in about 200 countries. The network signed a 7-year contract with Hot, an Israeli cable television company with more than 700,000 subscribers, to host the channel.
In a video message announcing the launch last week, Ward Simpson, the CEO of God TV, said the network “has been given government permission to broadcast the gospel of Jesus Christ — Yeshuah the Messiah — in Israel on cable TV in the Hebrew language. Never before, as far as we know in the history of the world, has this ever been done.”
The video was removed from the God TV website on Tuesday, according to the newspaper.
The network’s regional director Ron Kantor said there had “not been one moment” in which God TV was “not honest” with Hot or with the regulatory commission about the channel.
“We are not ashamed of who we are and what we believe,” Kantor told Haaretz. “We were told many times that laws have changed and there was no issue with our programming. Certainly if we were doing something sneaky, we would not have announced it to the world.”
And while Amsalem doesn’t have the authority to cut the programming off, he said he asked the overseeing council to launch an investigation.
The Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, a sovereign body, oversees the licensing process. It would be the council’s call on whether to remove the new channel.
“As soon as I heard about the incident, I asked the council’s chairman to launch a comprehensive investigation to determine that no channel is violating the terms of its license, and if indeed this channel is engaged in missionary activities, it will be taken down immediately,” Amsalem said.
Under Israeli law, it is forbidden to proselytize to a person under 18 without the consent of a parent.
“I do not believe that Hot or Shelanu TV has broken any rules,” Kantor said.
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