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Israeli Papers

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22

J EWELERS

ALIST
GEM/DIAMOND SPE F C I VE
AWARDED CERTIFICATE BY GIA
IN GRADING AND EVALUATION

FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 1990

30400 Telegraph Road
Suite 134
Birmingham, MI 48010
(313) 642-5575

DAILY 10-5:30
THURS. 10-7
SAT. 10-3

porting and critical political
analysis are an endangered
species. Thus, for example,
Koteret Rashit, an anti-Likud
weekly modeled after the
French L'Express, folded this
past January after seven years
of publication. Nachum
Barnea, its editor, says its elite
Ashkenazi (European Jewish)
readership simply could not
provide a viable economic
base for the paper.
Meanwhile, the 65-year-old
Davar — one of Israel's most
respected dailies, Davar is
owned by the trade union
Histadrut, which is affiliated
with the Labor party — is be-
ing kept alive only by means
of large financial infusions
from Histadrut-owned indus-
tries. Ironically, most of
Israel's workers, the target au-
dience of the paper, are either
Arabs from the occupied ter-
ritories or lower-middle class
Jews of Sephardi (or Middle
East) background who vote for
the Likud.
The four Hebrew-language
dailies that dominate the
market — Ha'aretz, often refer-
red to as The New York Times
of Israel, Ma'ariv, Yediot
Ahronot, and Hadashot —
tend, like the English-
language daily, The Jerusalem
Post, to be sympathetic to the
Labor party agenda.
A maverick among the
media is Ha'olam Ha'zeh, a
53-year-old weekly whose pub-
lisher and editor, the bearded
Uri Avneri, is in many ways
the enfant terrible of the Israeli
press. Avneri's muckraking
publication has, over the
years, exposed corruption in
high places, taken on some of
the most sacred institutions in
Israel political life, and
generally upheld an ultra-
liberal political agenda, in-
cluding support for negotia-
tions with the PLO and the
establishment of a Palestinian
state. Avneri shocked the
Israeli government and the
public, too, when he met with
and interviewed PLO chair-
man Yassir Arafat in Beirut
during the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon.
Shortly after becoming edi-
tor of Ha'olam Ha'zeh in 1951,
Avneri began to develop the
so-called two-covers strategy, a
unique Israeli media concept
designed to appeal to both the
university professor and the
greengrocer. The front cover of
the paper would focus on a
major political issue, while the
back cover might display a
naked woman or a figure in-
volved in some society scan-
dal. The formula worked and
Ha'olam Ha'zeh became a pro-
fitable enterprise with
political clout. Avneri won a
seat in the Knesset and serv-
ed for several years. In the late

'60s, however, young reporters
at mainstream publications
were emulating Ha'olam
Ha'zeh's style of aggressive
reporting; at the same time, as
sexual permissiveness spread
to the Jewish state, bare
breasts seem to have lost their
former appeal. (Bob Guccione,
publisher of Penthouse, is bet-
ting that they have not. In Ju-
ly, Guccione established a
partnership with a left-wing
political monthly, Monitin,
which he then turned into a
Hebrew-language and Middle
East edition of Penthouse.)
By 1980, declining reader-
ship and advertising had
forced Avneri to look for new
investors. Enter Arie Genger.
An Israeli who emigrated to
the United States in the early
'60s "with $300 in his pocket,"
as he told a Ha'aretz reporter,
Genger met in New York

Genger's return did
not go unnoticed.
The Israeli press,
led by "Ha'olam
Ha'zeh," launched
a vigorous attack.

another Israeli emigrant who
had struck it rich in America
— Meshulam Riklis. Riklis, a
successful businessman whose
recent marriage to film ac-
tress Pia Zadora had won him
attention in American gossip
magazines, was — and is — a
close friend of Ariel Sharon,
whose political campaigns he
has helped to finance. In late
1981, Riklis introduced
Genger to Sharon, who, dur-
ing a lunch at The '21' Club
in Manhatten, persuaded
Genger to return to Israel and
work for him as a department
head in the defense ministry.
Genger's return did not go
unnoticed. The Israeli press,
led by Ha'olam Ha'zeh,
launched a vigorous attack
against Genger, arguing that
an Israeli who had "aban-
doned" the country should not
be put in charge of sensitive
defense industries. Avneri,
whose editorials have made it
clear that he regards Sharon
as Israel's public enemy
number one, referred to
Genger as "Sharon's
Gangrene." Stung by such
criticism, Genger returned to
New York.
But not for long. Back in the
U.S., Genger started putting
out feelers, expressing an in-
terest in buying or investing
in one or another of Israel's
financially hard-pressed
papers. Finally, early this
year, in a classic case of
economic interests overcoming
political differences, Avneri
agreed to sell 50 percent of the
company's stock to Genger