An Israel television program on the country’s nuclear potential was cancelled last night only hours before it was scheduled to appear. Yitzhak Livne, director general of the Israel Broadcast Authority, who ordered the cancellation, denied that he did so on orders “from above.”
Livne said that television is a powerful medium and he feared the program would trigger a national debate on the issue. But, Dan Shilon. head of the TV news department, said there was nothing in the program that had not been printed earlier in the press.
The nuclear issue was to have been part of a new documentary series called “A Second Look” which deals with current Israeli topics. Shimon Tesler the program’s editor said the subject was chosen after former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan urged Israel to adopt the nuclear option and the recent articles in the world press claiming Israel has atomic bombs.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.