Hebrew media review

Farewell to a medicine man

Teva Pharmaceuticals ousts its CEO; the IDF and Finance Ministry continue to battle; and Israeli singers dole out driving tips

"We want a change at Teva" says the sign of a protester outside Teva Pharmaceutical's HQ on October 23. A change is what he got as CEO Jeremy Levin resigned on October 30 (photo credit: Roni Schutzer/Flash90)
"We want a change at Teva" says the sign of a protester outside Teva Pharmaceutical's HQ on October 23. A change is what he got as CEO Jeremy Levin resigned on October 30 (photo credit: Roni Schutzer/Flash90)

Normally the resignation of a CEO doesn’t make front page news. But when that CEO is the head of Teva Pharmaceuticals, Israel’s largest company, you can be sure there will be a lot of ink spilled over it.

Israel Hayom’s headline tries to explain to the public why it should care about the ouster of Jeremy Levin, “Teva’s crisis, our problem.” The paper reports that despite the change at the top, all of Levin’s plans will remain in place including the layoffs and the understandings reached with Israeli labor union Histadrut. As to why Levin was fired just a day after saying he would stay on, the paper reports that it stems from a disagreement between Levin and Teva Chairman Phillip Frost over cost-cutting measures.

The front page of Yedioth Ahronoth features a quote from Levin, “I wanted to stay at Teva,” and the day’s editorial cartoon showing Levin in the unemployment line. The paper’s main coverage comes in the form of an article written by Sever Plotzker, Yedioth’s financial editor, where he explains that Levin’s removal happened because Teva itself doesn’t know what it wants. “At the end of the day, mass layoffs and firing the CEO are not the way to make strategic decisions.”

Haaretz and Maariv give Jeremy Levin some front page real estate but it’s clear that he’s not either paper’s top priority.

Haaretz focuses on what it says are the latest building plans in the West Bank. “The next wave of building: 5,000 housing units in the West Bank, including secluded outposts,” reads the headline. The story goes on to state that the building plans, parts of which have been cannibalized from older plans, were announced to offset the domestic furor over the most recent Palestinian prisoner release. Despite the headline, most of the building will take place in Jerusalem and the major settlement blocs, the new units in the isolated settlements still having to pass through several more layers of regulation.

Over in Maariv the top story is a meeting in Switzerland that took place last week where Israeli, Iranian, and Arab officials were present to discuss a nuclear-free Middle East. The paper points out that this is the first time that Arab officials have agreed to even sit around the same table to discuss the subject. This first meeting was convened to set the agenda for an upcoming committee about getting WMDs out of the Middle East, but has already found itself at an impasse: whether the committee should focus on Iran or Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons. Israel worries that such a conference will only focus on its weapons, while there are other very real WMD threats in the region. No word yet when the next meeting will take place, if at all.

IDF vs. Finance Ministry

The renewed battle for a larger IDF budget is still making news and Maariv provides a six-point list it calls “Everything you need to know about the budget.” The list gives credence to arguments on both sides saying that yes, the IDF can trim some fat, while it is obvious that severe budget cuts could harm state security. The paper puts some of the blame on the Knesset as well, especially for defining how disabled benefits are distributed. It calls on the Knesset to change the law as to what is defined as disabled, and says that could significantly shrink the IDF’s budget.

“Let the IDF win” is the title of Amos Harel’s piece in Haaretz in which he argues aside from the political considerations (Netanyahu doesn’t want to be seen as doing anything to risk Israel’s security) there are operational considerations as well. The IDF needs to trim its fat, but it might be trimming it in the wrong areas. A lack of reserve unit training is the key symptom of the cutbacks, leading to more stress on the standing army. Harel compares the lack of training to the time before the Second Lebanon War in which a similar situation existed. Letting the IDF win means upping its budget, but restoring the entire NIS 4.5 billion the IDF wants is, in Harel’s words, “a long way off.”

There might finally be some resolution to the mystery of what happened to Israeli navigator Ron Arad. Israel Hayom reports that a Kuwaiti paper states that a deal between Iran and Western countries may finally shed a definitive light of the fate of Arad, whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986 and who was then taken captive by the Lebanese terror group Amal. In exchange for information on Ron Arad, Iran is expected to get information on four of its diplomats.

Israeli radio station Galgalatz is celebrating 20 years of being on the air and as Yedioth reports, it has recruited famous Israeli singers to help with its message. The station, which airs pop music interspersed with road safety messages, has consistently been one of the most popular stations in the country. So what tips will the singers share with Galgalatz listeners? Shlomo Artzi tells cyclists not to forget to wear a helmet, while Yehuda Poliker advises motorcyclists to look both ways and not only in the mirrors.

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