Israel debates Sheldon Adelson’s media, political heritage
Following the death of Jewish American Sheldon Adelson, the Israeli right and left disagree about how he influenced Israel’s media, society.
“If you don’t control a newspaper, you can’t really rule.” This was a mantra that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s media team heard incessantly from him after his first term as prime minister. Over the years, the message only got louder.
As Netanyahu became increasingly convinced that the left controlled the Israel media, he reached the inevitable conclusion that what was needed as a counterbalance was a powerful and influential media outlet on the right. Founding such an outlet became his meta-goal; in order to fulfill it, he worked relentlessly to win support and funding from a prominent right-wing tycoon.
It took him until 2007. Netanyahu was then head of the opposition, when a free daily newspaper, Israel Hayom (“Israel Today”), burst on the scene, sending shock waves through the Israeli media market. It was the result of an enormous investment by one of Netanyahu’s closest confidants, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a man committed to sweeping change.
It’s been more than 13 years since Israel Hayom first burst on the scene. Adelson died Jan. 11 at the age of 87, leaving behind a controversial political and media legacy in Israel, as he did in the United States. Israel Hayom never met Netanyahu and Adelson’s expectations for it to become the country’s most influential newspaper, but it remains the most widely distributed. And it managed to shatter the dominance of Yediot Ahronot, a long-established, rival paper loathed by Netanyahu.
