Sheldon Adelson Gets OK To Expand Right Wing Israel Media Empire
Image by getty images
A Jerusalem court approved the sale of the right-wing newspaper Makor Rishon and the NRG news website to Sheldon Adelson’s Israel Hayom company.
Adelson bid nearly $5 million for the purchase of both properties, which also includes the recently defunct daily Maariv newspaper. Israel Hayom also will employ 95 percent of Makor Rishon and NRG workers for at least a year.
The sale still has to be approved by Israel’s Anti-Trust Authority. Israel Hayom, a free daily distributed throughout Israel, began operating in 2007, and has the highest daily circulation of any Israeli newspaper.
Adelson, a billionaire who made his fortune in casinos, is a major supporter of Republican candidates in the United States, and of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Israel Hayom is Pravda, it’s the mouthpiece of one man – the prime minister,” Israel’s Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday. “At every point where there was a contradiction between the national interest and the prime minister, the paper always preferred the prime minister.”
Makor Rishon and NRG were put up for sale by Israeli businessman Shlomo Ben Tzvi and his family after poor sales of Maariv led to the combined company owing about $1 million to creditors and employees.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
