Live broadcasting ban for Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to US Congress

Israeli election watchdog orders TV and radio stations to impose five-minute delay on broadcast to allow editing out of "electioneering" sections

Live broadcasts of Benjamin Netanyahu's highly controversial speech to the United States congress on Tuesday are banned in Israel in an attempt to prevent it influencing the outcome of the country's general election two weeks later.

The order made two weeks ago followed a ruling by the national election watchdog in response to an appeal by opposition parties that the address - ostensibly to warn against a deal with Iran over its nuclear programme - should not be broadcast at all because it amounted to electioneering.

Instead, television and radio will be allowed to broadcast it with a five-minute delay to allow editors to cut sections deemed too political.

"Editors-in-chief of broadcast channels will watch and make sure that nothing the prime minister says can be construed as election campaigning," Salim Joubran, head of Israel's central election committee and a judge on the nation's supreme court, said last month.

"Any campaigning will be omitted from the broadcast."

More Here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1141628...