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1347_3 | Cohen-Almagor argues that one of the dangers in any political system is that the principles that underlie and characterise it may, through their application, bring about its destruction. Democracy, in its liberal form, is no exception. Moreover, because democracy is a relatively young phenomenon, Cohen-Almagor asserts that it lacks experience in dealing with pitfalls involved in the working of the system. This is what he calls the “catch” of democracy. Cohen-Almagor maintains that the freedoms the media enjoy in covering events are respected as long as they do not imperil the basic values that underlie democracy. Freedom of speech is a fundamental right, an important anchor of democracy; but it should not be used in an uncontrolled manner.
Concern and Respect |
1347_4 | Concern and respect are reiterated themes in Cohen-Almagor's scholarship. He argues that we should give equal consideration to the interest of others and grant equal respect to a person's life objects so long as they do not deliberately undermine the interests of others by interfering in a disrespectful manner. The popular culture of a democratic society is committed to seeking the influence of social cooperation that can be discerned on the basis of mutual respect between free and equal individuals. This line of reasoning should be supplemented, so Cohen-Almagor maintains, by our emphasis on the notion of concern, which is seen as the value of well-being. We ought to show equal concern for each individual's good, to acknowledge that human beings are not only rational creations but irrational, emotional creatures. In the context of medical ethics, treating people with concern means treating them with empathy – viewing people as human beings who may be a furious and frustrated while, |
1347_5 | at the same time, are capable of smiling and crying, of careful decision-making, and of impulsive reactions. Concern means giving equal weight to a person's life and autonomy. This is a combination of mind, body, and communication between the agent and those around her bed. |
1347_6 | In his article, “On the Philosophical Foundations of Medical Ethics: Aristotle, Kant, JS Mill, and Rawls”, Cohen-Almagor argues that people should be respected qua being persons and should never be exploited. Human beings are objects of respect. Following Kant, Cohen-Almagor maintains that people are not subjective ends but are objective ends. People are beings whose existence in itself is an end, and this end should be promoted and safeguarded.
Death with Dignity |
1347_7 | Cohen-Almagor is a strong proponent of physician-assisted suicide and equally strong critic of euthanasia. Drawing on the various ethical, medical and legal considerations as well as on the experiences of the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Oregon, he argues that on some occasions not only passive euthanasia may be allowed but also physician-assisted suicide. People should have the ability to control the time and place of their death. Cohen-Almagor's thesis is that people, as autonomous moral agents, deserve to be treated with dignity. To treat a person with dignity requires respecting her choices and life decisions. |
1347_8 | Therefore, Cohen-Almagor calls to judge each case on its own merits and refrain from drawing sweeping conclusions that relate to categories of patients. One may try to prescribe detailed guidelines of conduct but, at the end of the day, the guidelines should be judged and evaluated in relation to each patient under consideration. The fear of sliding down the slippery slope is, indeed, tangible. Cohen-Almagor prescribes cautionary measures and safety valves. Through real-life situations, his plea for physician-assisted suicide is circumscribed. |
1347_9 | End-of-Life Public Policies |
1347_10 | Key research finding 1: Patient-Physician Relationship |
1347_11 | Cohen-Almagor has developed a right-to-die theory that: i) supports physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and opposes euthanasia; ii) has surveyed existing policies in countries that have legislated euthanasia; iii) called for socially responsible terminology and policies; and iv) raised concrete concerns regarding trust between physicians and patients where euthanasia is legally permitted. The underpinning research focuses on the responsibilities of physicians to their patients, and whether physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia should be a part of good doctoring. Further, the research weighs patients’ autonomy and good doctoring at the end of life and demonstrates the power of law to shape policies as well as its limitations. The Israel Dying Patient Law that Cohen-Almagor co-drafted made a substantial impact on patient-physician relationships and in promoting patient’s autonomy and decision-making capacity. By July 2019, 22,000 people signed advance directives and |
1347_12 | deposited them in the Ministry of Health depository. |
1347_13 | Key research finding 2: Potential for abuse
A key aspect of Cohen-Almagor’s work is concerned with safeguarding patient’s rights and interests. In a significant number of cases, physicians have shortened patients’ lives without their consent. Cohen-Almagor showed that there have been a number of cases where “Physicians Playing God” have abused their position and authority to make decisions that are not in the patients’ best interests. Also, end-of-life care is often compromised due to economic considerations and a shortage of resources. Cohen-Almagor accentuates the importance of adequate palliative care at the end-of-life. |
1347_14 | Key research finding 3: The role of the patient’s beloved people
The research highlights that the people around the patient’s bed at the end-of-life are not necessarily blood relatives. Caution is required in incidents when the best interests of the patient’s family members contradict the patient’s best interests. Sometimes patients’ lives are shortened because the family is unable to cope with the situation. The research on who defines patients’ best interests (patients, medical staff, people around patient’s bed), discusses potential conflicts of interest and raises awareness of the consequences of emotional draining that is often the result of caring for terminal patients. |
1347_15 | Key research finding 4: Advance directives (ADs) |
1347_16 | The research has evidenced that Advance Directives (ADs) are often made without an opportunity for full informed consent. For example, in the USA, ADs might be utilised by medics against the patient’s best interests to save costly resources. The research shows that ADs have not fulfilled their promise of facilitating decisions about end-of-life care for incompetent patients. Many legal requirements and restrictions concerning ADs are counterproductive: despite their benevolent intentions, they have created unintended negative consequences, against patients’ wishes. Cohen-Almagor argues that if ADs have to be used, they should be as clear and precise as possible. Open interpretations and speculation should be avoided, as they might be detrimental to the patient’s best interests. Extreme caution is required when ADs of patients with dementia are concerned, as they are no longer able to formulate clear, voluntary, well-considered, and sustainable end-of-life requests. |
1347_17 | Key research finding 5: Organ donations at the end of life |
1347_18 | The research supports the rights of elderly patients. It shows that age should not serve as the decisive criterion in decisions on the allocation of organs. While age is an important variable in determining a patient’s medical condition, there are other — no less important — factors that influence one’s health. There are people in their 80s whose health is generally good, while there are people in their 40s in very poor health. The age criterion is too simple, too general, too sweeping. It provides too convenient an answer to a tough and troubling question. The research also shows that there is a correlation between euthanasia and organ donation in Belgium. Similar concerns were recently raised in Canada. In Belgium Euthanasia donors accounted for almost a quarter of all lung donors. The concern is that vulnerable patients might be driven to consider euthanasia for the purpose of organ procurement, and that the planning of the death procedure might be premature, and against the |
1347_19 | wishes of the patient. |
1347_20 | Freedom of Expression
Cohen-Almagor dedicates much of his scholarship to delineate the confines of free expression. He has formulated principles conducive to safeguarding fundamental civil rights. His focus is on the ethical question of the constraints on speech. He advances two arguments relating to the ‘Harm Principle’ and the ‘Offence Principle’. Under the ‘Harm Principle’, restrictions on liberty may be prescribed when there are sheer threats of immediate violence (incitement) against some individuals or groups. Under the ‘Offence Principle’, expressions that intend to inflict psychological offence are morally on a par with physical harm, so he argues there are grounds for abridging them. A case in point is the Illinois Supreme Court which permitted the Nazis to hold a hateful demonstration in Skokie. Cohen-Almagor argues that the decision was flawed. Similarly, allowing Jewish racists to march in an Arab town in Israel is flawed.
Fighting Holocaust Denial |
1347_21 | In 1983, together with a small group of people Cohen-Almagor established “The Second Generation to the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance” Organization in Israel designated to educate the youth about the Holocaust and its lessons for humanity. Within a few years, this organisation became one of the largest NGOs in the country with more than 2000 members. Cohen-Almagor served as Chairman until 1987. He says that the lessons of the Holocaust for him are to stand against injustice, protect minorities, protest against wanton persecution, and promote the rights of all humans.
Cohen-Almagor is increasingly engaged in fighting Holocaust denial. Recently, he has pushing for making Holocaust denial illegal in Britain. This is because Holocaust denial is an extreme form of hate speech that legitimises violence and calls for the killing of Jews.
Social Responsibility |
1347_22 | In recent writings, Cohen-Almagor calls to strike a balance between freedom of expression and social responsibility. Responsibility is commonly associated with accountability and answerability. We live within a community and have some responsibilities to it. The responsibilities are positive and negative. That is, we have a responsibility to better the society in which we live, and a responsibility to refrain from acting in a way that knowingly might harm our community. The responsibility is ethical in nature. We can reasonably expect people to know the difference between good and evil, and then to act accordingly. In the Internet context, Cohen-Almagor distinguishes between Netusers and Netcitizens. The term “Netuser” refers to people who use the Internet. It is a neutral term. It does not convey any clue as to how people use the Internet. It does not convey any appraisal of their use. The term “netcitizen”, on the other hand, is not neutral. It describes a responsible use of the |
1347_23 | Internet. Netcitizens are people who use the Internet as an integral part of their real life. That is to say, their virtual life is not separated from their real life. Even if they invent an identity for themselves on social networks such as Second Life, they do it in a responsible manner. They still hold themselves accountable for the consequences of their Internet use. In other words, netcitizens are good citizens of the Internet. They contribute to the Internet's use and growth while making an effort to ensure that their communications and Net use are constructive, fostering free speech, open access and social culture of respecting others, and not harming others. Netcitizens, asserts Cohen-Almagor, are netusers with a sense of responsibility. |
1347_24 | Multiculturalism |
1347_25 | To what extent can liberal democracies interfere in internal affairs of their subcultures, especially when their conduct is illiberal? This question occupies much of Cohen-Almagor's scholarship on multiculturalism. In a piece co-authored with Will Kymlicka, Cohen-Alamgor contends that if an illiberal minority is seeking to oppress other groups, then intervention is justified in the name of self-defense. Both Cohen-Almagor and Kymlicka further assert that in the case of immigrants who come to a country knowing its laws, there is no objection to imposing liberal principles on them. The situation is more complicated with national minorities, particularly if (a) they were involuntarily incorporated into the larger state (as the Palestinians claim with regard to their incorporation into the Jewish state), and (b) they have their own formalized governments, with their own internal mechanisms for dispute resolution. In these circumstances, the legitimate scope for coercive intervention by |
1347_26 | the state may be limited. |
1347_27 | Cohen-Almagor and Kymlicka maintain that there are several things which liberals can do to promote respect for individual rights within non-liberal minority groups. Since a national minority which rules in an illiberal way acts unjustly, liberals have a right - indeed a responsibility - to speak out against such injustice, and to support any efforts the group makes to liberalize their culture. Since the most enduring forms of liberalization are those that result from internal reform, the primary focus for liberals outside the group should be to provide this sort of support. Moreover, incentives can be provided, in a non-coercive way, for liberal reforms. Cohen-Almagor and Kymlicka further recommend promoting the development of regional or international mechanisms for protecting human rights. |
1347_28 | In Just Reasonable, Multiculturalism, Cohen-Almagor develops a comprehensive theory that tackles three major attacks on multiculturalism: that it is bad for democracy, that it is bad for women, and that it promotes terrorism, aiming to show that liberalism and multiculturalism are reconcilable. Cohen-Almagor outlines the theoretical assumptions underlying a liberal response to threats posed by cultural or religious groups whose norms entail different measures of harm. He examines the importance of cultural, ethnic, national, religious, and ideological norms and beliefs, and what part they play in requiring us to tolerate others out of respect. Cohen-Almagor formulates guidelines designed to prescribe boundaries to cultural practices and to safeguard the rights of individuals and then applies them to real life situations. Painstakingly, Cohen-Almagor balances group rights against individual rights and delineates the limits of state intervention in minority groups’ affairs in cases |
1347_29 | involving physical harm and non-physical harm. The first category includes practices such as scarring, suttee, murder for family honour, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), female circumcision and male circumcision. The second category includes arranged and forced marriages, divorce and property rights, gender segregation, denial of education, and enforcement of a strict dress code. Two country case studies, France and Israel, illustrate the power of security considerations in restricting claims for multiculturalismsee also |
1347_30 | .
Human Rights |
1347_31 | Cohen-Almagor is a human rights and peace activist. He has written against administrative detention, religious coercion, discrimination against Arabs in Israel, the 1982 Lebanon War, and the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. He spoke in favour of separation between state and religion, women and minority rights, patients’ rights, a two state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. In 2000, he opened an international campaign to evacuate the Gaza Strip, seeing this move as the start of a Palestinian State (“Gaza First”). In late 2006 he called for early elections in Israel after he lost trust in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the tragic architect of the Israel-Hezbollah War. This campaign ended in February 2009, when Israel held early elections that terminated the Olmert government. In 2009, Cohen-Almagor called upon Israel to institute a national enquiry commission to address all the issues mentioned in the Goldstone Report regarding |
1347_32 | Israel's war conduct during its Cast Lead Operation (2008–2009). |
1347_33 | During 2009-2011 he was engaged in a campaign which called for a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas that would bring Gilad Shalit back home. That campaign ended in October 2011, when Gilad was united with his family, and more than 1000 Palestinians were released from Israeli jails. Since 2011, Cohen-Almagor has been calling for a two state solution, believing this is the only viable and just option for both Israel and Palestine. |
1347_34 | Peace Studies |
1347_35 | Since the 1980s, Cohen-Almagor has been a peace activist and in recent years he has made peace and conflict resolution the focal point of his research. Due to his involvement in politics and peace talks, he has gained invaluable insights into leaders’ thought-processing as well as access to many decision-makers, facilitators, mediators and negotiators. His research analyses the roles of international players in the context of their respective Middle East policies and bilateral relations with Israel and the Palestinians. Cohen-Almagor provides a detailed analysis of three decades of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), from the start of the Oslo process in 1993 up until present time. The inquiry relates to the design and setting of the Oslo, Stockholm and Harpsund talks, their opacity at Oslo, and the way the host countries addressed the asymmetric power relationship between the negotiating sides. The novelty of this research is that |
1347_36 | it is based on primary resources: research in archives in Oslo, London, Washington and Jerusalem as well as on semi-structured in-depth interviews with influential decision-makers from Israel, Palestine, the United States, Sweden, Norway, Egypt and the United Kingdom. Cohen-Almagor’s research is informed by the experience of successful peace talks; it explains the milestones in the failed peace process between Israel and the PLO since 1993, the root causes for the failure to bring about peace, and the keys for future successful negotiations: what needs to be done in order to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians. |
1347_37 | Deliberative democracy |
1347_38 | Deliberative democracy directly involves citizens in the decision-making processes on matters of public concern. It requires the setting of public reason institutions by which knowledge is exchanged and ideas crystallised via mechanisms of deliberation and critical reflections. Democratic procedures establish a network of pragmatic considerations and a constant flow of relevant information. People present their cases in persuasive ways, trying to bring others to accept their proposals. Processes of deliberation take place through an exchange of information among parties who introduce and critically test proposals. Deliberations are free of any coercion and all parties are substantially and formally equal, enjoying equal standing, equal ability, and equal opportunity to table proposals, offer compromises, suggest solutions, support some motions and criticise others. Cohen-Almagor is a strong proponent of deliberative democracy, believing it is a useful method to prevent Internet abuse |
1347_39 | (CleaNet) and conflicts between individual rights and group rights. |
1347_40 | Anti-Universalism |
1347_41 | Unlike most liberals, Cohen-Almagor confines his scholarship to the democratic world. He says explicitly that he is concerned with all countries around the world, because he thinks that what he says is appropriate, simply because he is realistic. Cohen-Almagor believes that there are some basic universal needs that all people wish to secure such as food, raiment, and shelter. Sexual drives are universal and people need to have some sleep to be able continue functioning. He also believes that we should strive to universalise moral principles. But sociologically speaking we cannot ignore the fact that universal values do not underlie all societies. Some societies reject the moral notions of liberty, tolerance, autonomy, equality, and justice that liberal democracies promote. If a country is not founded on these notions, then it would be futile for us to speak about these values. Thus, his practical recommendations on freedom of expression, end-of-life and multiculturalism are restricted |
1347_42 | to the democratic world. |
1347_43 | Grants and awards
In the course of his career, Professor Cohen-Almagor has won numerous grants, scholarships and fellowships from major institutions around the world including the Bogliasco Foundation, the British Council, the Canadian Government, The Fulbright Foundation, the Hastings Center, the Israel Ministry of Science, the Italian Foreign Office, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Volkswagen Education Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His biography appears in many books of distinction, including Outstanding People of the 20th Century, Distinguished and Admirable Achievers, The International Directory of Distinguished Leadership, Biography Today, Biography Fame International, Who's Who in the World, Distinguished and Admirable Achievers, The Dictionary of International Biography, Asian/American Who's Who, The Contemporary Who's Who of Professionals and Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare. |
1347_44 | Visiting Appointments and Fellowships |
1347_45 | Cohen-Almagor was a Visiting Fellow, the Hastings Center, New York in 1994 and 1999; Visiting Scholar, Oxford University in 1997; Visiting Scholar, Department of Metamedica, Faculty of Medicine, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam in 1999 and 2002; Visiting Fulbright – Yitzhak Rabin Professor, UCLA School of Law in 1999-2000; Resident Fellow at The Rockefeller Foundation Center, Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy in 2002; Visiting Professor, Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC in 2003-2004; Distinguished Visiting Scholar, University of Manitoba School of Law, Winnipeg in 2004; Resident Fellow at The Bogliasco Foundation, Liguria Study Center in Bogliasco, Italy in 2005; Fellow at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC in 2007-2008; Visiting Scholar at Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Spain in 2015; Fellow, Salzburg Global Seminar, Salzburg, Austria in 2015; Visiting Scholar, Institute for |
1347_46 | Biomedical Ethics, Universität Basel, Switzerland in 2016; Visiting Professor, Nirma University, Institute of Law, India in 2018; Visiting Scholar, Department of Philosophy, University of Zurich in 2018. Cohen-Almagor received the UCL Distinguished Visiting Professorship in 2019. |
1347_47 | Books
Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism: Liberalism, Culture and Coercion (2021)
Middle Eastern Shores (poetry, Hebrew, 1993)
The Boundaries of Liberty and Tolerance (1994; Hebrew 1994, 2nd ed. 1999)
Speech, Media and Ethics (2001, 2nd ed. 2005; Turkish 2003)
The Right to Die with Dignity (2001)
Euthanasia in the Netherlands (2004)
The Scope of Tolerance (2006)
The Democratic Catch (2007), Hebrew
Voyages (poetry, Hebrew, 2007)
Confronting the Internet's Dark Side: Moral and Social Responsibility on the Free Highway (2015) |
1347_48 | Edited Books
Basic Issues in Israeli Democracy (Hebrew, 1999)
Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Tolerance (2000)
Medical Ethics at the Dawn of the 21st Century (2000)
Challenges to Democracy: Essays in Honour and Memory of Isaiah Berlin (2000)
Moral Dilemmas in Medicine (Hebrew, 2002)
Israeli Democracy at the Crossroads (2005)
Israeli Institutions at the Crossroads (2005)
Public Responsibility] (with Asa Kasher and Ori Arbel-Ganz, Hebrew, 2012)
External links
Israeli Politics
Politics and International Studies staff site
Author page at SSRN
Author page at Amazon
Twitter account
ResearchGate Author Page
Academia
Kudos
LinkedIn
Google Scholar
Middle East Study Group (MESG), University of Hull
The Two-State Solution: The Way Forward, Fathom: For a deeper understanding of Israel and the region, 12 June 2014
References
University of Haifa faculty
Living people
Academics of the University of Hull
Political philosophers
Year of birth missing (living people) |
1348_0 | The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth and the second-lowest lake in the world (after the Dead Sea, a saltwater lake), at levels between and below sea level. It is approximately in circumference, about long, and wide. Its area is at its fullest, and its maximum depth is approximately . The lake is fed partly by underground springs but its main source is the Jordan River, which flows through it from north to south and exits the lake at the Degania Dam.
Geography |
1348_1 | The Sea of Galilee is situated in northeast Israel, between the Golan Heights and the Galilee region, in the Jordan Rift Valley, the valley caused by the separation of the African and Arabian plates. Consequently, the area is subject to earthquakes, and in the past, volcanic activity. This is evident from the abundant basalt and other igneous rocks that define the geology of Galilee.
Names
The lake has been called by different names throughout its history, usually depending on the dominant settlement on its shores. With the changing fate of the towns, the lake's name also changed. |
1348_2 | Sea of Kinneret
The modern Hebrew name, Kinneret, comes from the Hebrew Bible where it appears as the "sea of Kinneret" in and , spelled כנרות "Kinnerot" in Hebrew in . This name was also found in the scripts of Ugarit, in the Aqhat Epic. As the name of a city, Kinneret was listed among the "fenced cities" in . A persistent, though likely erroneous, popular etymology of the name presumes that the name Kinneret may originate from the Hebrew word kinnor ("harp" or "lyre"), because of the shape of the lake. The scholarly consensus, however, is that the origin of the name is derived from the important Bronze and Iron Age city of Kinneret, excavated at Tell el-'Oreimeh. The city of Kinneret may have been named after the body of water rather than vice versa, and there is no evidence for the origin of the town's name. For a different etymology, see Galilee#Sea of Galilee. |
1348_3 | Lake of Gennesaret
All Old and New Testament writers use the term "sea" (Hebrew יָם yam, Greek θάλασσα), with the exception of Luke, who calls it "the Lake of Gennesaret" (), from the Greek λίμνη Γεννησαρέτ (limnē Gennēsaret), the "Grecized form of Chinnereth" according to Easton (1897). For a different etymology, see Galilee#Sea of Galilee.
Sea of Ginosar
The Babylonian Talmud, as well as Flavius Josephus, mention the sea by the name "Sea of Ginosar" after the small fertile plain of Ginosar that lies on its western side. Ginosar is yet another name derived from "Kinneret".
Sea of Galilee, Sea of Tiberias, Lake Tiberias
The word "Galilee" comes from the Hebrew Haggalil (הַגָלִיל), which literally means "The District", a compressed form of Gelil Haggoyim "The District of Nations" (Isaiah 8:23). |
1348_4 | Toward the end of the first century CE, the Sea of Galilee became widely known as the Sea of Tiberias after the eponymous city founded on its western shore in honour of the second Roman emperor, Tiberius.
In the New Testament, the term "sea of Galilee" (, thalassan tēs Galilaias) is used in the gospel of Matthew , the gospel of Mark , and in the gospel of John as "the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias" (θαλάσσης τῆς Γαλιλαίας τῆς Τιβεριάδος, thalassēs tēs Galilaias tēs Tiberiados), the late 1st century CE name. Sea of Tiberias is also the name mentioned in Roman texts and in the Jerusalem Talmud, and it was adopted into Arabic as (بحيرة طبريا), "Lake Tiberias".
Sea of Minya
From the Umayyad through the Mamluk period, the lake was known in Arabic as "Bahr al-Minya", the "Sea of Minya", after the Umayyad qasr complex, whose ruins are still visible at Khirbat al-Minya. This is the name used by the medieval Persian and Arab scholars Al-Baladhuri, Al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir. |
1348_5 | History
Prehistory
In 1989, remains of a hunter-gatherer site were found under the water at the southern end. Remains of mud huts were found in Ohalo. Nahal Ein Gev, located about 3 km east of the lake, contains a village from the late Natufian period. The site is considered one of the first permanent human settlements in the world from a time predating the Neolithic revolution.
Hellenistic and Roman periods
The Sea of Galilee lies on the ancient Via Maris, which linked Egypt with the northern empires. The Greeks, Hasmoneans, and Romans founded flourishing towns and settlements on the lake including Hippos and Tiberias. The first-century historian Flavius Josephus was so impressed by the area that he wrote, "One may call this place the ambition of Nature"; he also reported a thriving fishing industry at this time, with 230 boats regularly working in the lake. Archaeologists discovered one such boat, nicknamed the Jesus Boat, in 1986.
The New Testament |
1348_6 | In the New Testament, much of the ministry of Jesus occurs on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. In those days, there was a continuous ribbon development of settlements and villages around the lake and plenty of trade and ferrying by boat. The Synoptic Gospels of Mark 1:14–20), Matthew 4:18–22), and Luke 5:1–11) describe how Jesus recruited four of his apostles from the shores of the Kinneret: the fishermen Simon and his brother Andrew and the brothers John and James. One of Jesus' famous teaching episodes, the Sermon on the Mount, is supposed to have been given on a hill overlooking the Kinneret. Many of his miracles are also said to have occurred here including his walking on water, calming the storm, the disciples and the miraculous catch of fish, and his feeding five thousand people (in Tabgha). In John's Gospel the sea provides the setting for Jesus' third post-resurrection appearance to his disciples (John 21). |
1348_7 | Late Roman period
In 135 CE, Bar Kokhba's revolt was put down. The Romans responded by banning all Jews from Jerusalem. The center of Jewish culture and learning shifted to the region of Galilee and the Kinneret, particularly the city of Tiberias. It was in this region that the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled.
Byzantine period
In the time of the Byzantine Empire, the Kinneret's significance in Jesus' life made it a major destination for Christian pilgrims. This led to the growth of a full-fledged tourist industry, complete with package tours and plenty of comfortable inns.
Early Muslim and Crusader periods
The Sea of Galilee's importance declined when the Byzantines lost control and the area was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate and subsequent Islamic empires. The palace of Minya was built by the lake during the reign of the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I (705–715 CE). Apart from Tiberias, the major towns and cities in the area were gradually abandoned. |
1348_8 | In 1187, Sultan Saladin defeated the armies of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin, largely because he was able to cut the Crusaders off from the valuable fresh water of the Sea of Galilee.
Ottoman period
The lake had little importance within the early Ottoman Empire. Tiberias did see a significant revival of its Jewish community in the 16th century, but had gradually declined, until in 1660 the city was completely destroyed. In the early 18th century, Tiberias was rebuilt by Zahir al-Umar, becoming the center of his rule over Galilee, and seeing also a revival of its Jewish community. |
1348_9 | Zionist beginnings
In 1908, Jewish pioneers established the Kinneret Farm at the same time as and next to Moshavat Kinneret in the immediate vicinity of the lake. The farm trained Jewish immigrants in modern farming. One group of youth from the training farm established Kvutzat Degania in 1909–1910, popularly considered as the first kibbutz, another group founded Kvutzat Kinneret in 1913, and yet another the first proper kibbutz, Ein Harod, in 1921, the same year when the first moshav, Nahalal, was established by a group trained at the Farm. The Jewish settlements around Kinneret Farm are considered the cradle of the kibbutz culture of early Zionism; Kvutzat Kinneret is the birthplace of Naomi Shemer (1930–2004), buried at the Kinneret Cemetery next to Rachel (1890–1931)—two of the most prominent national poets.
British Mandate
Borders, customs, water rights |
1348_10 | In 1917, the British defeated Ottoman Turkish forces and took control of Palestine, while France took control of Syria. In the carve-up of the Ottoman territories between Britain and France, it was agreed that Britain would retain control of Palestine, while France would control Syria. However, the allies had to fix the border between the Mandatory Palestine and the French Mandate of Syria. The boundary was defined in broad terms by the Franco-British Boundary Agreement of December 1920, which drew it across the middle of the lake. However, the commission established by the 1920 treaty redrew the boundary. The Zionist movement pressured the French and British to assign as many water sources as possible to Mandatory Palestine during the demarcating negotiations. The High Commissioner of Palestine, Herbert Samuel, had sought full control of the Sea of Galilee. The negotiations led to the inclusion into the Palestine territory of the whole Sea of Galilee, both sides of the River Jordan, |
1348_11 | Lake Hula, Dan spring, and part of the Yarmouk. The final border approved in 1923 followed a 10-meter wide strip along the lake's northeastern shore, cutting the Mandatory Syria (State of Damascus) off from the lake. |
1348_12 | The British and French Agreement provided that existing rights over the use of the waters of the river Jordan by the inhabitants of Syria would be maintained; the Government of Syria would have the right to erect a new pier at Semakh on Lake Tiberias or jointly use the existing pier; persons or goods passing between the landing-stage on the Lake of Tiberias and Semakh would not be subject to customs regulations, and the Syrian government would have access to the said landing-stage; the inhabitants of Syria and Lebanon would have the same fishing and navigation rights on Lakes Huleh, Tiberias and River Jordan, while the Government of Palestine would be responsible for policing of lakes.
State of Israel |
1348_13 | On May 15, 1948, Syria invaded the newborn State of Israel, capturing territory along the Sea of Galilee. Under the 1949 armistice agreement between Israel and Syria, Syria occupied the northeast shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. The agreement, though, stated that the armistice line was "not to be interpreted as having any relation whatsoever to ultimate territorial arrangements." Syria remained in possession of the lake's northeast shoreline until the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
In the 1950s, Israel formulated a plan to link the Kinneret with the rest of the country's water infrastructure via the National Water Carrier, in order to supply the water demand of the growing country. The carrier was completed in 1964. The Israeli plan, to which the Arab League opposed its own plan to divert the headwaters of the Jordan River, sparked political and sometimes even armed confrontations over the Jordan River basin. |
1348_14 | After five years of drought , Sea of Galilee is expected to get to the black line. The black elevation line is the lowest depth from which irreversible damage begins and no water can be pumped out any more. Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research describes it as "The black line marks −214.87 m, the lowest-ever level reached since 1926 when the water level record began. According to the water authority, the Kinneret water level must not decline below this level."
In February 2018, the city of Tiberias requested a desalination plant to treat the water coming from the Sea of Galilee and demanded a new water source for the city. March 2018 was the lowest point in water income to the lake since 1927. |
1348_15 | In September 2018 the Israeli energy and water office announced a project to pour desalinated water from the Mediterranean Sea into the Sea of Galilee using a tunnel. The tunnel is expected to be the largest of its kind in Israel and will transfer half of the Mediterranean desalted water and will move 300 to 500 million cubic meters of water per year. The plan is said to cost five billion shekels. Giora Eiland led the meetings with German counterparts to find a suitable contractor to build the project.
Archaeology
In 1986 the Ancient Galilee Boat, also known as the Jesus Boat, was discovered on the north-west shore of the Sea of Galilee during a drought when water levels receded. It is an ancient fishing boat from the 1st century AD, and although there is no evidence directly linking the boat to Jesus and his disciples it nevertheless is an example of the kind of boat Jesus and his disciples, some of whom were fishermen, may have used. |
1348_16 | During a routine sonar scan in 2003 (finding published in 2013), archaeologists discovered an enormous conical stone structure. The structure, which has a diameter of around , is made of boulders and stones. The ruins are estimated to be between 2,000 and 12,000 years old, and are about underwater. The estimated weight of the monument is over 60,000 tons. Researchers explain that the site resembles early burial sites in Europe and was likely built in the early Bronze Age.
In February 2018, archaeologists discovered seven intact mosaics with Greek inscriptions. One inscription, one of the longest found to date in western Galilee, gives the names of donors and the names and positions of church officials, including Irenaeus. Another mosaic mentions a woman as a donor to the church's construction. This inscription is the first in the region to mention a female donor.
Water level |
1348_17 | The water level is monitored and regulated. There are three levels at which the alarm is rung:
The upper red line, below sea level (BSL), where facilities on the shore start being flooded.
The lower red line, BSL, pumping should stop.
The black (low-level) line, BSL, irreversible damage occurs. |
1348_18 | Daily monitoring of the Sea of Galilee's water level began in 1969, and the lowest level recorded since then was November 2001, which today constitutes the "black line" of 214.87 meters below sea level (although it is believed the water level had fallen lower than the current black line, during droughts earlier in the 20th century). The Israeli government monitors water levels and publishes the results daily at this web page. The level over the past eight years can be retrieved from that site. Increasing water demand in Israel, Lebanon and Jordan, as well as dry winters, have resulted in stress on the lake and a decreasing water line to dangerously low levels at times. The Sea of Galilee is at risk of becoming irreversibly salinized by the salt water springs under the lake, which are held in check by the weight of the freshwater on top of them. |
1348_19 | With extreme drought conditions continuing to intensify, the government of Israel approved a plan in 2018 to pump desalinated water into the lake in an effort to stop the water level from plunging below a point where irreversible ecological damage to the lake might take place.
Since the beginning of the 2018–19 rainy season, the Sea of Galilee has risen considerably. From being near the ecologically dangerous l black line of −214.4 m, the level has risen by 16 April 2020 to just below the upper red line, due to strong rains and a radical decrease in pumping. During the entire 2018–19 rainy season the water level rose by a historical record of , while the 2019–20 winter brought a rise until 16 April, the rainy season not being over yet. The Water Authority has dug a new canal in order to let of water flow from the lake directly into the Jordan River, bypassing the existing dams system for technical and financial reasons. |
1348_20 | As at 9 January 2020, the water level was at below sea level. It will be considered full if the water level rises by another . By 19 January 2020, the water level was below sea level, short of being considered full. As of 5 April 2020, the water level was below sea level, the highest level it has been since 2004. On 24 April the level was below sea level.
Water use
Israel's National Water Carrier, completed in 1964, transports water from the lake to the population centers of Israel, and in the past supplied most of the country's drinking water. Nowadays the lake supplies approximately 10% of Israel's drinking water needs. |
1348_21 | In 1964, Syria attempted construction of a Headwater Diversion Plan that would have blocked the flow of water into the Sea of Galilee, sharply reducing the water flow into the lake. This project and Israel's attempt to block these efforts in 1965 were factors which played into regional tensions culminating in the 1967 Six-Day War. During the war, Israel captured the Golan Heights, which contain some of the sources of water for the Sea of Galilee. |
1348_22 | Up until the mid-2010s, about of water was pumped through the National Water Carrier each year. Under the terms of the Israel–Jordan peace treaty, Israel also supplies of water annually from the lake to Jordan. In recent years the Israeli government has made extensive investments in water conservation, reclamation and desalination infrastructure in the country. This has allowed it to significantly reduce the amount of water pumped from the lake annually in an effort to restore and improve its ecological environment, as well as respond to some of the most extreme drought conditions in hundreds of years affecting the lake's intake basin since 1998. Therefore, it was expected that in 2016 only about of water would be drawn from the lake for Israeli domestic consumption, a small fraction of the amount typically drawn from the lake over the previous decades.
Tourism |
1348_23 | Tourism around the Sea of Galilee is an important economic segment. Historical and religious sites in the region draw both local and foreign tourists. The Sea of Galilee is an attraction for Christian pilgrims who visit Israel to see the places where Jesus performed miracles according to the New Testament, such as his walking on water, calming the storm and feeding the multitude. Alonzo Ketcham Parker, a nineteenth-century American traveler, called visiting the Sea of Galilee "a 'fifth gospel' which one read devoutly, his heart overflowing with quiet joy".
In April 2011, Israel unveiled a hiking trail in Galilee for Christian pilgrims, called the "Jesus Trail". It includes a network of footpaths, roads and bicycle paths linking sites central to the lives of Jesus and his disciples. It ends at Capernaum on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus expounded his teachings. |
1348_24 | Another key attraction is the site where the Sea of Galilee's water flows into the Jordan River, to which thousands of pilgrims from all over the world come to be baptized every year.
Israel's most well-known open water swim race, the Kinneret Crossing, is held every year in September, drawing thousands of open water swimmers to participate in competitive and noncompetitive events.
Tourists also partake in the building of rafts on Lavnun Beach, called Rafsodia. Here many different age groups work together to build a raft with their bare hands and then sail that raft across the sea.
Other economic activities include fishing in the lake and agriculture, particularly bananas, dates, mangoes, grapes and olives in the fertile belt of land surrounding it.
The Turkish Aviators Monument, erected during the Ottoman era, stands near Kibbutz Ha'on on the lakeshore, commemorating the Turkish pilots whose monoplanes crashed en route to Jerusalem.
Flora, fauna and ecology |
1348_25 | The warm waters of the Sea of Galilee support various flora and fauna, which have supported a significant commercial fishery for more than two millennia. Local flora include various reeds along most of the shoreline as well as phytoplankton. Fauna include zooplankton, benthos and a number of fish species such as Acanthobrama terraesanctae. The Fishing and Agricultural Division of the Ministry of Water and Agriculture of Israel is listing 10 families of fish living in the lake, with a total of 27 species – 19 native and 8 introduced from elsewhere. Local fishermen talk of three types of fish: "مشط musht" (tilapia), sardine (the Kinneret bleak, Acanthobrama terraesanctae), "بني biny" (carp-like), and catfish. The tilapia species include the Galilean tilapia (Sarotherodon galilaeus), the blue tilapia (Oreochromis aureus), and the redbelly tilapia (Tilapia zillii). Fish caught commercially include Tristramella simonis and the Galilean tilapia, locally called "St. Peter's fish". In 2005, |
1348_26 | of tilapia were caught by local fishermen. This dropped to in 2009 due to overfishing. |
1348_27 | A fish species that is unique to the lake, Tristramella sacra, used to spawn in the marsh and has not been seen since the 1990s droughts. Conservationists fear this species may have become extinct.
Low water levels in drought years have stressed the lake's ecology. This may have been aggravated by over-extraction of water for either the National Water Carrier to supply other parts of Israel or, since 1994, for the supply of water to Jordan (see "Water use" section above). Droughts of the early and mid-1990s dried out the marshy northern margin of the lake. It is hoped that drastic reductions in the amount of water pumped through the National Water Carrier will help restore the lake's ecology over the span of several years. The amount planned to be drawn in 2016 for Israeli domestic water use was expected to be less than 10% of the amount commonly drawn on an annual basis in the decades before the mid-2010s. |
1348_28 | Important Bird Area
The lake, with its immediate surrounds, has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports populations of black francolins and non-breeding griffon vultures as well as many wintering waterbirds, including marbled teals, great crested grebes, grey herons, great white egrets, great cormorants and black-headed gulls.
See also
Miracles of Jesus
Sea of Galilee Boat
The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, 1633 Rembrandt painting
Tourism in Israel
References
Further reading
External links |
1348_29 | World Lakes Database entry for Sea of Galilee
Kinneret Data Center // Kinneret Limnological Laboratory
Sea of Galilee - official government page (Hebrew).
Sea of Galilee water level (Hebrew) // official government page
Database: Water levels of Sea of Galilee since 1966 (Hebrew)
Bibleplaces.com: Sea of Galilee
Updated elevation of the Kinneret's level (Hebrew). Elevation (meters below sea level) is shown on the line following the date line.
Lakes of Israel
Sea
Sea
Tourist attractions in Israel
Catholic pilgrimage sites
Sacred lakes
Shrunken lakes
Jordan River basin
Important Bird Areas of Israel |
1349_0 | Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, the company is the second-largest television station operator in the United States by number of stations (after Nexstar Media Group), owning or operating a total of 193 stations across the country in over 100 markets (covering 40% of American households), many of which are located in the South and Midwest, and is the largest owner of stations affiliated with Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, MyNetworkTV, and The CW. Sinclair also owns four digital multicast networks (Comet, Charge!, Stadium, and TBD), sports-oriented cable networks (Tennis Channel and Bally Sports Regional Networks), and a streaming service (Stirr), and owns or operates four radio stations in the Pacific Northwest. Among other non-broadcast properties, Sinclair also owns the professional |
1349_1 | wrestling promotion Ring of Honor and its streaming service Honor Club. On June 2, 2021, it was announced that Sinclair is a Fortune 500 company, having annual revenues of $5.9 billion in 2020. |
1349_2 | A 2019 study in the American Political Science Review found that "stations bought by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage and move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction relative to other stations operating in the same market." The company has been criticized by journalists and media analysts for requiring its stations to broadcast packaged video segments and its news anchors to read prepared scripts that contain pro-Trump editorial content, including warnings about purported "fake news" in mainstream media, while Trump has tweeted support for watching Sinclair over CNN and NBC.
History
Early roots |
1349_3 | The company's roots date back to 1958, when Julian Sinclair Smith, an electrical engineer, along with a group of shareholders, formed the Commercial Radio Institute, a broadcasting trade school in Baltimore, Maryland. Commercial Radio Institute later applied to build an FM radio station and construction permit was granted the following year, and WFMM-FM (now WPOC) signed on the air in February 1960.
By 1967, Smith (as Chesapeake Engineering Placement Service) had applied for, and was granted, a construction permit for a new UHF television station in Baltimore.
Chesapeake Television Corporation |
1349_4 | Chesapeake Engineering Placement Service changed its name to Chesapeake Television Corporation, and launched its founding television station property, WBFF in Baltimore, on April 11, 1971. The Commercial Radio Institute, by then a division of Chesapeake Television Corporation, later founded WPTT (now WPNT) in Pittsburgh, in 1978; and WTTE in Columbus, Ohio, in 1984. All three stations originally were independents, though WBFF and WTTE became charter affiliates of the Fox Broadcasting Company at its launch in 1986. The Fox affiliation in Pittsburgh went to higher-rated WPGH-TV, which would later be purchased by Sinclair in 1990. |
1349_5 | Chesapeake's first foray into local news came in the early 1980s when it launched a newscast on WPTT, a rarity at this time for stations not affiliated with the then-major networks (ABC, CBS and NBC). This newscast was called WPTT News, and in the opening segment, the letters "news" were formed from a compass indicating the four cardinal directions. This opening segment, featuring then-anchorman Kevin Evans, appeared briefly (and was audible) in the movie Flashdance during a scene where Jennifer Beals' character returns home and turns on the television. The presentation was relatively low-budget, with the anchor simply reading copy, with no field video shots other than the weather read over a stock video shot denoting the conditions outside, and wasn't a factor in taking ratings away from then-market laggard WIIC-TV (now WPXI), much less solid runner-up WTAE-TV and then-locally owned Group W powerhouse KDKA-TV. As WBFF didn't air newscasts until 1991 and WTTE wouldn't air any |
1349_6 | newscasts from its 1984 sign-on until Sinclair purchased ABC affiliate WSYX in 1996, this marked the company's only foray into local news for years, a genre it would become much more involved in from the mid-1990s on. |
1349_7 | Sinclair Broadcast Group
1985–2010
Smith's son David D. Smith began taking a more active role in the company in the 1980s. In 1985, the Chesapeake Television Corporation changed its name to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. In 1990, David Smith and his three brothers bought their parents' remaining stock and went on a buying spree that eventually made it one of the largest station owners in the country, through the purchases of groups such as Act III Broadcasting (in 1995) and River City Broadcasting (in 1996). |
1349_8 | Sinclair pioneered the concept of the local marketing agreement (LMA) in American television in 1991, when it sold WPTT to its general manager Eddie Edwards (founder of Glencairn, Ltd., the Sinclair-affiliated licensee that would eventually become Cunningham Broadcasting) in order to purchase fellow Pittsburgh station WPGH-TV to comply with FCC ownership rules of the time that prohibited duopolies, while agreeing to allow Sinclair to retain operational responsibilities for the station. However, while LMAs would become an integral part of the company's business model in subsequent years, Sinclair's plans to acquire KOKH-TV in Oklahoma City through Glencairn, which would subsequently attempt to sell five of its 11 existing LMA-operated stations to Sinclair outright in turn (with Sinclair stock included in the deal) was challenged by the Rainbow/PUSH coalition (headed by Jesse Jackson) to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1998, citing concerns over a single company |
1349_9 | controlling two broadcast licenses in the same market in violation of FCC rules. The coalition argued that Glencairn passed itself off as a minority-owned company (Edwards is African American) which, since the Smith family controlled most of the company's stock, was technically a Sinclair arm that planned to use the LMA with KOKH to gain control of the station and create an illegal duopoly with KOCB. In 2001, the FCC levied a $40,000 fine against Sinclair for illegally controlling Glencairn. Sinclair became a publicly listed company in 1995, while the Smith family retained a controlling interest. |
1349_10 | In 1994, Sinclair signed a deal with Paramount and its UPN network, bringing five affiliates WPTT-TV in Pittsburgh, WNUV-TV in Baltimore, WCGV-TV in Milwaukee, WSTR-TV in Cincinnati and KSMO-TV in Kansas City to the network. In 1996, Sinclair bought out Superior Communications for $63 million. In 1997, Sinclair reached a deal with The WB to convert many of the UPN affiliates to The WB. Following the disputes, in August 1998, Sinclair and UPN signed a new agreement. On February 25, 1998, Sinclair bought out Sullivan Broadcasting for $1 billion. In 1998, Sinclair bought out Max Media Properties, for $252 million. On November 8, 2004, Sinclair sold off KSMO-TV in Kansas City to Meredith Corporation for $26.8 million. In December 2004, Sinclair divested KOVR-TV in Sacramento to CBS for $285 million. |
1349_11 | In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 14, 2009, Sinclair stated that if the company could not refinance its $1.33 billion debt or if Cunningham Broadcasting became insolvent due to nonpayment on a loan worth $33.5 million, Sinclair may be forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. However, the company seemingly recovered its financial fortunes enough, as it would begin a major string of acquisitions involving television stations and other properties two years later. |
1349_12 | 2011–2013 |
1349_13 | On September 8, 2011, Sinclair entered into an agreement to purchase all of the assets of Four Points Media Group from Cerberus Capital Management for $200 million. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) gave its antitrust approval of the deal in late September; as a result, that October 1, Sinclair took over the management of the stations from the Nexstar Broadcasting Group through time brokerage agreements Cerberus would then pay Nexstar a portion of Sinclair's purchase price – $6.7 million – to terminate the outsourcing agreement, which was set to expire in March 2012, five months early. Sinclair would also supply working capital to the stations in consideration of service fees and performance incentives through the LMAs. The group deal was officially completed on January 1, 2012, after the FCC approved it on December 21, 2011. On November 2, 2011, it was announced that Sinclair would purchase all eight television stations owned by Freedom Communications in a move for Freedom to |
1349_14 | eliminate its debt. The purchase was valued at $385 million, and at the time, Sinclair was the ninth largest broadcasting group in the United States. Sinclair took over the operations of the Freedom stations on December 1, 2011, through time brokerage agreements. The deal was granted approval by the FCC on March 13, 2012, and was consummated on April 1. |
1349_15 | At the same time, it was also reported that Sinclair had made an offer to purchase Columbus, Ohio CW affiliate WWHO from LIN TV, making it a sister station to WSYX and managed Fox affiliate WTTE. The station was subsequently sold to Manhan Media, who entered into a shared services agreement with Sinclair. On May 15, 2012, Sinclair renewed its affiliation agreement for its 19 Fox affiliates for five years through 2017. The agreement included the option for Sinclair to purchase Baltimore MyNetworkTV affiliate WUTB from Fox Television Stations at any point between July 1, 2012, and March 31, 2013. If exercised, this would create a virtual triopoly with flagship station WBFF and CW affiliate WNUV, which Sinclair manages under a local marketing agreement with Cunningham Broadcasting; it also gave Fox Television Stations the option to buy any combination of six Sinclair-owned CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates in three of four markets: Raleigh, North Carolina (WLFL and WRDC), Las Vegas, Nevada |
1349_16 | (KVCW and KVMY), Cincinnati, Ohio (WSTR-TV) and Norfolk, Virginia (WTVZ). Of these stations, WLFL and WTVZ are both former Fox charter affiliates, having disaffiliated with the network in 1998 to become affiliates of The WB. |
1349_17 | On July 19, 2012, Sinclair announced it would acquire six stations from Newport Television, including WKRC-TV in Cincinnati, WOAI-TV in San Antonio, WHP-TV (along with its LMA for WLYH-TV) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, WPMI-TV and WJTC in Mobile, Alabama, and KSAS-TV (along with its LMA for KMTW) in Wichita, Kansas, for $412.5 million. Concurrently, Sinclair announced that it would also acquire Tampa station WTTA outright from Bay Television (which Sinclair operated under a LMA), for $40 million. Sinclair also sold two stations, WSTR-TV and KMYS, to Deerfield Media, a company owned by Stephen P. Mumblow (the owner of Manhan Media), in order to satisfy the FCC's restrictions on duopolies. Sinclair continues to operate these two stations under shared services agreements. Sinclair also gave Deerfield Media the option to purchase WJTC and WPMI at some future date. |
1349_18 | On November 26, 2012, Sinclair exercised its option on WUTB through its recently formed LMA partner Deerfield Media (the transfer was formally consummated on June 1, 2013). In January 2013, Fox announced that it would not exercise its option from the 2012 renewal deal to buy any of the Sinclair stations in the four markets. Therefore, Sinclair is required to pay Fox $25 million. Deerfield Media also acquired Beaumont, Texas Fox affiliate KBTV-TV from Nexstar. Following the acquisition, Sinclair-owned KFDM took over its operations under a shared services agreement. The deal was granted approval by the FCC for both Sinclair and Deerfield Media with their respective stations on November 19, 2012. The sale was consummated on December 3; on that day, Sinclair also acquired the non-FCC assets of ABC affiliate WHAM-TV in Rochester, New York, from Newport, with the license and other FCC assets being transferred to Deerfield Media. On February 25, 2013, Cox Media Group announced that it would |
1349_19 | sell its four smallest (by market size) television stations – KFOX-TV in El Paso, Texas, WJAC-TV in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, KRXI-TV in Reno, Nevada, and WTOV-TV in Steubenville, Ohio – to Sinclair. Cox sold these stations as part of a refocus on larger markets. Concurrently, Deerfield Media acquired the license assets of KAME-TV in Reno, which has long been operated by KRXI, from Ellis Communications. WJAC-TV and WTOV-TV have overlapping coverage with Sinclair's existing stations in Pittsburgh, WPGH-TV and WPNT (then known as WPMY). |
1349_20 | Three days later, on February 28, 2013, Sinclair announced the purchase of Barrington Broadcasting's 18 stations; six other stations operated by Barrington also came under the management of Sinclair. Sinclair operates the former Cox and Barrington stations through a subsidiary, Chesapeake Television, which focuses on smaller markets; this unit has separate management from Sinclair's main group, which operates the company's larger-market properties. As part of the Barrington acquisition, Chesapeake Television inherited Barrington's headquarters in Schaumburg, Illinois. Concurrently with the Barrington acquisition, Sinclair originally planned to transfer WYZZ-TV in Peoria–Bloomington, Illinois and WSYT (and its LMA of WNYS-TV) in Syracuse, New York, to Cunningham Broadcasting, because of FCC ownership restrictions, as Barrington already owned stations in these markets. However, in an updated filing with the FCC on August 9, it was revealed that WSYT would instead be sold to Bristlecone |
1349_21 | Broadcasting, LLC; a company owned by Brian Brady, owner of Stainless Broadcasting Company. Sinclair would continue to operate WSYT and WNYS through a transitional service agreement for six months, following consummation of the deal. The deal with Sinclair acquiring the four smaller-market Cox stations was granted approval by the FCC on April 29, 2013, with Deerfield Media's acquisition of KAME-TV following suit the next day. The Sinclair and Deerfield acquisitions of their respective Cox-controlled stations were consummated on May 1. The Barrington acquisition had to wait until November 18 to be granted FCC approval, with formal consummation taking place on November 25. On April 11, 2013, Sinclair announced that it would merge with Fisher Communications, which owned 20 television stations in the western United States, as well as three Seattle radio stations. Sinclair reportedly beat out LIN Media in the bidding war for Fisher. As a result of the deal, Sinclair took over the |
1349_22 | operations of an additional former Newport Television station, KMTR in Eugene, Oregon (which Fisher, owner of KVAL-TV in Eugene, had reached a deal to operate under a shared services agreement), and return to radio ownership for the first time since selling its previous radio group to Entercom and Emmis Communications in 1999 and 2000. The deal was initially met with financial scrutiny; the law firm Levi & Korsinsky notified Fisher shareholders with accusations that Fisher's board of directors were breaching fiduciary duties by "failing to adequately shop the Company before agreeing to enter into the transaction," and Sinclair was underpaying for Fisher's stock. Shortly after the announcement, a lawsuit was filed by a Fisher shareholder; the suit was settled in July 2013, with Fisher's shareholders approving the merger on August 6. On August 7, the FCC granted its approval of the deal, which was completed the next day. |
1349_23 | On June 3, 2013, Sinclair announced that it would purchase four stations from the Titan TV Broadcast Group – KMPH-TV and KFRE-TV in Fresno, California, KPTM in Omaha, Nebraska, and KPTH in Sioux City, Iowa. Sinclair also took over the operations of KXVO in Omaha and KMEG in Sioux City, which had been operated by TTBG through shared services agreements. On April 23, TTBG had filed to sell a seventh station, KDBC-TV in El Paso, Texas, to Cunningham Broadcasting, leading to speculation that the station's operations would be consolidated with Sinclair-owned KFOX-TV. On August 7, Sinclair exercised its option to purchase KDBC outright from Cunningham Broadcasting. FCC duopoly regulations normally disallow two of the four highest-rated stations (which are usually the affiliate stations of the "Big Four" networks) from being directly owned by a single entity. However, in this case (due to the presence of U.S.-based Spanish-language stations in the market among the top four), Sinclair cited |
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