A group of entrepreneurs which includes members of the Kibbutz Movement, left-wing Jewish activists and Palestinian businessmen, have announced that the Voice of Peace radio, closed in 1993, will start broadcasting again from Ramallah on 4 November 2003. The station says it has been allocated a frequency by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Communications.
But the announcement has infuriated those close to the original station’s founder, Abie Nathan. The original Voice of Peace (VOP), a non-political humanitarian station, broadcast from a ship outside Israeli territorial waters. Israeli journalist Mike Brand, a friend and confidante of Abie Nathan, says that the new group calling themselves the Voice Of Peace have no legal right to use the name and its jingles.
Brand says the new group want their station to be a political station, whereas Nathan’s supporters are working on an alternative plan which avoids politics altogether, and adheres to the format of the old VOP, with a humanitarian slant.