The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. While the daily readership numbers (tens of thousands) do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers, the Jerusalem Post has a much broader reach than these other newspapers in that its readership is composed of Israeli politicians, foreign journalists, and tourists, and it is also distributed worldwide. Whilst it was once regarded as left-wing, the paper underwent a noticeable shift to the right in the late 1980s. Under the new ownership and editorial leadership of editor-in-chief David Horovitz since 2004, the paper's political identity has moved again to a more complex centrist position. Examples of this shift include support for the August 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip and the paper's advocacy for privatization of Israeli religious institutions.

History

The Palestine Post was founded on December 1, 1932 by American journalist-turned-newspaper-editor, Gershon Agron in the British Mandate of Palestine. During its time as The Palestine Post, the publication supported the struggle for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and openly opposed British policy restricting Jewish immigration during the Mandate period.

According to the Historical Jewish Press, the Palestine Post was established "as part of a Zionist-Jewish initiative", and "Zionist institutions considered the newspaper one of the most effective means of exerting influence on the British authorities".

On the evening of February 1, 1948, a stolen British police car loaded with half a ton of TNT pulled up in front of the Jerusalem office of the Palestine Post. The driver of a second car arrived a few minutes later, lit the fuse and drove off. [http://www.ajhs.org/publications/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=285 American Newlyweds in Israel, 1948 ] The building also contained other newspaper offices, the British press censor, the Jewish settlement police, and a Hagana post with a cache of weapons. Arab leader Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Hagana leaders suspected other parties, including Etzel, British forces, and "German saboteurs". The bomb was intended to kill Post editor Gershon Agron, who was out of the building at the time. The blast killed three persons, injured dozens of others and destroyed the printing press. The morning paper came out in a reduced format of two pages, printed up at a small print shop nearby. In 1950, two years after the State of Israel was declared, the paper was renamed The Jerusalem Post.

Ownership changes

Until 1989 the paper supported the forerunners of the Labour Party. In 1989, the paper was purchased by Hollinger Inc. A number of journalists resigned from the Post after Conrad Black's takeover and founded the Jerusalem Report, a weekly magazine eventually sold to the Post. The leader of the walkout was David Landau, who founded Haaretz English Edition and went on to become editor-in-chief of Haaretz.