ABSTRACT
From the very beginning of the Zionist enterprise, the basic motto of the major Israeli political parties was "co-opt or control." Centralization and the capacity to apply sanctions within the various political groupings, and eventually within the state, provided the means of control. The political parties control health-fund clinics where the child will receive doctors' care, they run the youth movement or sports club where the youngster will play and be socialized into his or her peer group, and they control wide patronage systems and even large businesses and banks that provide jobs and credit. A very good example of co-optation is the means used to bring and to keep the local press under the bureaucratic umbrella. The system of editorial co-optation began to break down with the election of Menachem Begin as prime minister in 1977. For politicians anywhere to be able to co-opt Western journalists over time, certain conditions need to be met.
