Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a blistering rebuke to prosecutors Wednesday, calling their bribery case against him “outrageous” and built on “nonsense” as he testified for a fourth day in a Tel Aviv courtroom.
While judges pressed for faster testimony, Netanyahu insisted on examining each example of the prosecution’s case thoroughly. His account of snatching only brief late-night moments with his wife to discuss family matters painted a picture far removed from the prosecution’s portrait of a prime minister orchestrating favorable coverage from telecom tycoon Shaul Elovitch on his Walla news site.
Defense attorney Hadad hammered this point home by highlighting Walla’s coverage of Sara Netanyahu’s 2013 visit to West Point.
As the prime minister’s wife paid respects at the grave of Col. Mickey Marcus, an American officer killed fighting for Israeli independence, Walla simply reported her momentous gesture as merely “an outing while her husband delivers a speech.” Even after complaints, the best Netanyahu’s team could get was a removal of the article rather than a new one published with favorable coverage.
“It’s not only negative, it’s contemptible. She wasn’t on an outing; she went to do something fitting for the wife of a prime minister to do. She wasn’t going shopping, she placed a bouquet for the State of Israel on the grave of a hero of Israel,” Netanyahu fumed.
Walla’s treatment of Netanyahu’s inner circle proved equally harsh. When his chief of staff Gil Sheffer resigned in 2013, Walla issued a headline “The abandonment continues” with coverage Netanyahu noted was more hostile than even perpetual critic Haaretz’s reporting of the same event.
“This is what they say is bribery, these non-stories. This nonsense, this ‘intense and unusual connection’ which doesn’t exist,” insisted Netanyahu. “I had no hand in this, not a finger, not a fingernail, because I was very, very busy.
“If only I could be an attentive ear to my wife. Unfortunately, the type of life we live, the job I have, this is not possible. We meet late at night for a few minutes, we talk about the children and the family,” he continued. “There is no possibility of going over all the events of the day, it doesn’t exist.”
Israel’s longest-serving prime minister also expressed particular outrage that police never questioned him about of the favorable coverage allegations during their investigation.
