World

Israel's Newspaper War

October 28, 1999 / 9:52 AM EDT / AP

Murder plots, illegal wiretapping, blackmail - Israelis are appalled that newspaper giants are not just writing about these crimes, they are allegedly committing them.

Reeling from the news that a publishing magnate has been accused of plotting to kill his two main competitors, officials worried that any damage to the institution of journalism could spell trouble for a society heavily influenced by those who write the morning headlines.

Attorney General Eliakim Rubinstein said if the allegations proved true, it would shake the foundations of news-obsessed Israeli society.

Â"Every citizen will have to worry,Â" he said.

In Israel, on buses and in public places, people regularly pause and turn up the radio to catch hourly news updates. Hebrew newspapers enjoy a circulation of 600,000 in a country of 6 million, a number that includes well over a million people who get their news in Arabic, Russian and English.

So when a gag order on a police investigation was lifted at dawn Wednesday, Israelis were riveted to headlines screaming the latest in the newspaper scandal.

Ofer Nimrodi, publisher of the Ma'ariv daily until he suspended himself last week, was accused of plotting to kill two of his rivals and a private investigator.

Nimrodi denied the allegations, made by a former accomplice to illegal wiretapping, saying they were part of an attempt to extort millions of dollars from him.

The scandal began with a battle for public attention that turned ugly -- and illegal.

In 1992, Ma'ariv went to a tabloid format to compete with Israel's top-selling daily, Yediot Ahronot. The two newspapers began to bear a suspiciously striking resemblance to each other.

In 1994, police arrested editors and staffers of both papers and questioned them about wiretapping their rivals' phones.

Nimrodi and his private investigator, Rafi Pridan, were convicted of illegal wiretapping. Nimrodi served four months for ordering Pridan to bug Yediot's phones. Yediot editor Moshe Vardi was also found guilty of wiretapping, but was later cleared by a higher court.

From his prison cell, where he is serving a four-year sentence, Pridan accused his former boss of plotting to kill Arnon Mozes, Yediot's publisher, and Amos Schocken, publisher of Israel's respected daily, Haaretz.

The third target allegedly was Pridan's former partner, Yaakov Tzur, who became a prosecution witness in the wiretapping case, media reports said.

Police are investigating the murder conspiracy allegations.