Kol HaAm

***Kol HaAm*** was a daily Hebrew newspaper of the Communist Party of Palestine and its successor, the Israeli Communist Party (Mki). It was published between  1937 and 1975. The ruling in the petition filed by the newspaper against its closure, known as the "High Court of the People's" (1953) is one of the important formulations for the protection of freedom of expression in Israel.

## History

"Kol Ha'am" began to be published as a monthly in August 1937 without a performance license. The newspaper identified with the policy of the Soviet Union. It expressed full confidence in the Soviet regime, even during Stalin's time.

From 1942, Kol Ha'am was a weekly. Following many public and legal efforts, the mandatory Ministry of the Interior granted a publication license. The first legal issue was published on December 20 1944.

The newspaper's editors over the years included the senior MK members: Shamuel Mikunis, Moshe Sana, Esther Wilenska, Meir Wilner and Zvi Breitstein. The poet Alexander Penn was the editor of the newspaper's literary section for most of its existence. In the section, the works of young authors such as Hanoch Levin and David Avidan first saw the light of day.

In 1965, with the split in the MKI between the majority that took a critical approach towards the Soviet Union and the minority that remained loyal to the Soviet Union and founded the Rakha, "Kol Ha'am" remained under the control of the MKI. The members of Rakh established a competing newspaper called "This is the way". After the split, MK remained a small opposition party. The newspaper gradually faded until it was closed in 1975.

The newspaper did not support itself. Its funding came from donations from members and friends of the PKP. The newspaper managed fundraisers to finance its activities. In the 1950s, recruitment quotas were distributed to different regions of the State of Israel, and the newspaper published how each region met the quota.

## Legal battles

The newspaper's editors were prosecuted several times for defamation. In September 1948, the newspaper accused a number of police officers of having tortured and murdered the communist activist Sioma Mironyansky in 1941, while he was serving in the Criminal Investigation Department of the Mandate Police. In response, the officers demanded that the editors of the newspaper be prosecuted for defamation.  It was found that there was truth in the claims. An investigative committee was established to examine the circumstances of Mironyansky's murder. In February 1951, a trial was opened on charges of defamation against the newspaper's editors for an article from September 1949 in which the Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, was called a "traitor to the people", "pulling the American imperialism" and other nicknames. At the trial, Ben-Gurion claimed that the article was intended to harm Soviet Union-Israel relations. The defense attorney for the Kol HaAm argued  that the purpose of the trial was to suppress the Israeli Communist Party. In December 1951, the newspaper was accused of defaming the Minister of Police and inciting rebellion for an article published on July 8 1950. In July 1952 the newspaper was closed for a week because of censorship.

The Kol HaAm adopted the blood plot of The Doctors' Trial in 1953 and described in its headline the banned Jewish doctors as "a gang of murderous doctors in the service of American-British espionage". The government sought to ban the MKI and discussed the possibility of closing Kol Ha'am. In January 1953, the Minister of the Interior, Israel Pharmacist ordered the closing of the newspaper for ten days. according to a law from the British Mandate era that permits the issuing of a closure order to a newspaper that publishes things that may harm the public peace. The newspaper submitted a petition to the Beg 3 against the closure, but the High Court refused to issue a conditional order. In March 1953 the Minister of the Interior again ordered the closing of the newspaper for ten days, this time because of an editorial article under the title "Aba Ibn will go to fight alone", in which the newspaper appeared against the alleged statement of Ambassador Israel Abba Even, that Israel would place hundreds of thousands of soldiers alongside the United States in the event of a war with the Soviet Union. The newspaper wrote: "We will increase our fight against the anti-national policy of the Ben-Gurion government which is permeated with the blood of the Israeli youth." This time the High Court issued a conditional order against the action of the Minister of the Interior and suspended the closure of the newspaper until the Kol Ha'am petition against the closure was investigated. The ruling on the petition, which became known as the High Court of the People's Voice, was published on October 16 1953. The ruling written by the Judge Agrant with the consent of the judges Moshe Landoi and Yuel Sussman, stated that freedom of expression is a fundamental right that is an inseparable part of democracy. The authority of the Minister of the Interior to close a newspaper on the grounds of public peace is limited to cases in which there is near certainty of a risk to public peace from the newspaper's publications. Referring to the case of Kol Ha'am, as well as the newspaper Al-Ittihad which published similar things  it was ruled that the published words are far from indicating a near certainty of a danger to public peace and therefore canceled the order.  This ruling was a milestone in Israeli jurisprudence and law,. It established freedom of expression as a fundamental right. It was an example of the court's authority to cancel an action of the executive in violation of a fundamental right if certain conditions are met, such as the test of near certainty.

In June 1953, three charges were filed against the newspaper for insulting the honor of foreign rulers. One was due to a scathing article against John Foster Dulles under the title "Know Foster Dulles, Know Your Enemy". Judge Benyamin Halevi dismissed the charge and subsequently the Attorney General announced the cancellation of the other two charges In July 1953, Habib Shiver's sued Kol Ha'am for calling him a "fascist adventurer" and accusing him of selling in the black market a paper he received for election propaganda. Kol Ha'am won the trial. Shiver was ordered to pay legal costs to the newspaper.

## Other websites

- Kol Ha'am, on the website Historical Jewish Press