Former CEO of Walla News testifies he was told that good coverage of Netanyahu was worth billions in government benefits to Walla’s parent company.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

In the third day of testimony at the corruption trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, a key witness in the case described in detail how he had been subject to intense pressure to ensure positive coverage of the prime minister in return to government favoritism worth “billions,” Walla news reported.

Netanyahu is accused of conspiring with Shaul Elovitch and his wife Iris to give only positive news coverage of Netanyahu on Walla, one of Israel’s most popular websites. Elovitch at the time was the major shareholder of the Bezeq communications company, the parent company of Walla.

According to the prosecution, Elovitch expected Netanyahu’s support for legislation that favored Bezeq in return for giving Netanyahu favorable coverage.

Ilan Yeshua, the former CEO of the Walla news website, appeared on the witness stand for the third day in a row to give more details about how Elovitch and his family pressured him to change the news to favor the prime minister.

At the beginning of his testimony, Yeshua told the court the Elovitchs told him “that if there is hostile coverage then he (Netanyahu) may not sign and there will be billions in damage to Bezeq.”

In a transcript presented as evidence from a WhatsApp group in which Yeshua, Shaul Elovitch and Elovitch’s son, Or, exchanged messages, Or Elovitch criticized a negative article about Netanyahu in Walla and expressed concern that this would cause damage. Asked about previous conversations he had with Or, Yeshua said that after the 2015 election Elovitch wrote to him saying “congratulations on bringing him [Netanyahu] the election.”

According to Yeshua, Or expressed satisfaction and told him “now Bibi will do what they want.”

Asked if it was regular practice to completely remove news articles from the website, Yeshua replied it was very rare, and the prosecutor then asked him about a another conversation in January 2015 between Shaul Elovitch and Yeshua about an article on Walla critical of Netanyahu’s wife, Sara.

Elovitch wrote to Yeshua: “Take it down immediately, it will prevent ‘Yes’ approval” – referring to Bezeq’s bid for controlling interest of the Israeli satellite TV broadcaster Yes that required government authorization. A minute later, Elovitch wrote him: “I am killing you” and Yeshua replied, “I have ordered it to be taken down and deleted completely” and said he called the Walla editor and ordered him to remove it from the website.

Elovitch then wrote Yeshua: “It’s always better not to post than to take something down. Leave her alone, leave the dirt for Ynet,” – a competing news website.

However, in a damning piece of evidence at the time, Ynet noticed the change on the Walla website and wrote an article with the headline “Why did Walla remove an article about Sara Netanyahu?”

In further testimony, Yeshua said Elovitch repeatedly called saying he had talked with “him” and “the big one,” which Yeshua assumed meant Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has consistently denied the accusations against him and the testimony so far has not revealed any direct involvement by Netanyahu.

Wednesday’s court session received wide coverage in the Hebrew media. Walla covered the day’s testimony extensively with an article running over 15,000 words. It was more than seven times the size of the story on the same subject that appeared on the website of Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, traditionally perceived as being hostile to Netanyahu.

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Prosecution alleges Netanyahu made improper use of the governmental power entrusted to him; first witness describes pressure to change news coverage.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in court Monday at the start of the evidentiary stage of his trial on charges of corruption but left the court room immediately at the end of the opening speech and did not stay to hear any testimony, Kann News reported.

The hearing opened with a speech by the prosecutor from the State Attorney’s Office, attorney Liat Ben-Ari, who told the court that “the awareness of the Prime Minister that things are given to him because of his public status is what allows us to define things as bribery.”

“Defendant 1 is the Prime Minister of Israel, who according to the indictment made improper use of the great governmental power entrusted to him, inter alia, to demand and derive improper benefits from the owners of major media outlets in Israel in order to advance his personal affairs for a long time. To be re-elected,” Ben-Ari told the court.

At the beginning of the trial in February, Netanyahu pleaded not guilty. For years, the prime minister has maintained that the allegations against him are a witch hunt by people seeking to force him from power because they could not defeat him at the ballot box.

Ben-Ari alleged that Netanyahu’s communications regarding news coverage by the Walla news network were not just ordinary conversation.

“The discussion is not objective communication or not – but an impact on content,” said Ben-Ari. The main witness phase of the trial is expected to last up to several weeks, centering on the issue of whether or not Netanyahu and co-defendant Shaul Elovitch conspired to alter news coverage of the prime minister.

Elovitch at the time was CEO of the Bezeq communications company that had the controlling interest of the news website Walla, with Bezeq allegedly receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits from legislation Netanyahu advanced as long as Walla gave him positive coverage.

The first witness was former Walla CEO Ilan Yeshua, who testified that the biased coverage on the news site was done in exchange for regulatory benefits.

Yeshua said that Elovitch and his wife had told him on several occasions that if the prime minister’s wife Sara got angry, Netanyahu would get angry – and if he got angry, “we would be harmed,” as they put it.

He recalled referring to Netanyahu as “Kim,” indicating that the Prime Minister’s tactics were reminiscent of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Yeshua testified that senior staff members at the prime minister’s office constantly called him with articles ready to run on the website, and that the Elovitches pressured him to run articles critical of Netanyahu’s opponents.

As he delved into the details of how Shaul and Iris Elovitch had allegedly pressured him, Iris Elovitch at one point shouted towards the witness box, “How much can you lie?”

Yeshua’s testimony is expected to run through the end of the month, and the prosecution is expected to call at least 300 witnesses. Although only half of the witnesses are expected to be called to testify, the trial might continue for up to three years before a verdict is reached.

The defense is not obligated to announce at this point which witnesses it will bring. Netanyahu does not have to testify in court himself, but such a move may strengthen the suspicions against him, so he is likely to choose to testify at the relevant stage in the trial, Kann reported.

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The lawyers didn’t deny that requests were made by the prime minister but denied there was a quid pro quo.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

On Nov. 21, 2019, Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit indicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the charge of bribery in Case 4000, otherwise known as the Bezeq-Walla case. It’s the only case of three facing the prime minister with a bribery charge and therefore considered the most serious.

On Monday, the other defendants in the case, Israeli Tycoon Shaul Elovitch and his wife Iris, tried to punch a hole in the prosecution’s claim that there was bribery. Elovitch owned Israeli telecom giant Bezeq, which runs the website Walla.

Bribery wasn’t the issue, Elovitch’s two attorneys told the Jerusalem District Court on Monday morning, who didn’t deny that requests were made by the prime minister, but denied there was a quid pro quo, the essence of bribery. They said that changes made on Netanyahu’s behalf were an effort to provide more honest coverage.

According to Haaretz, Elovitch’s attorney, Jacques Chen, wrote in the statement by the defense, “it never crossed my client’s mind that by acceding to requests to ensure positive coverage for the prime minister and his family on the Walla website, or by initiating such coverage himself, he was giving a bribe.

“His intervention not only accorded with his views and positions, but was an attempt to balance, even slightly, in his mind, the website’s political line, as well as its extremely negative, petty and rankling attitude to Prime Minister Netanyahu and his family,” Chen wrote.

State prosecutors claim that Elovitch offered Netanyahu positive coverage on Walla‘s news site in exchange for regulatory favors. According to a revised indictment, the prosecution counts 230 times in which Netanyahu and his family attempted to alter Walla‘s reporting. Netanyahu was involved directly or indirectly in 155 of these instances, Haaretz reports.

Netanyahu’s lawyers made a similar statement in their defense of the prime minister, writing: “One could say that the media in Israel have for many years had a leftist bias. The prime minister believes that a major way of attaining some balance is the establishment and cementing of right-wing outlets, which can hold ongoing debates with left-wing media outlets.”

Netanyahu has been indicted in two other cases: Case 1000 and Case 2000. Case 1000 accuses Netanyahu of fraud and breach of trust for receiving gifts of cigars and champagne totaling $200,000 for various political favors. Case 2000 claims Netanyahu is guilty of attempted bribery for making a deal for favorable coverage from Yediot Aharonot publisher Arnon Mozes.

Netanyahu has rejected the accusations and calls the trials a “witch hunt” by his political opponents.

The indictments do not seem to have swayed Israel’s voters who have continued to vote for Netanyahu to be their leader. A Nov. 2019 poll, shortly after the indictments were announced, found 64% of Israelis saying it wouldn’t affect their vote.

However, opposition has been building against Netanyahu with weekend protests carrying on for months now outside his official residence and political parties on both sides of the political aisle forming with the promise to bring an end to his tenure.

Netanyahu has found a staunch defender in one seemingly objective observer, U.S. attorney Alan Dershowitz, who has said Israel “should be deeply ashamed” for putting Netanyahu on trial for seeking better coverage.

“Israel is the first country in modern history to ever put a political leader on trial for trying to get good media coverage or trying to eliminate negative media coverage,” Dershowitz told i24News last June.

He said the charges against Netanyahu are not crimes and that if the Knesset wanted them to be crimes, it would need to pass statutes to make them so, something Knesset members would never do “because if they did, half of the members of the Knesset would be in prison.”

The next court hearing will take place on Feb. 8. It will deal with all three cases. Netanyahu will be in attendance.

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If the prime minister is being indicted for giving bribes, then those allegedly receiving them could be charged as well.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israel’s justice ministry is considering whether to criminally charge the three media companies that are involved in the corruption cases against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Hayom reported Tuesday.

The head of Yedioth Ahronot, Arnon Mozes, and Walla! news portal owner and former chairman of Bezeq Shaul Elovitch, are personally implicated in the charge sheets against Netanyahu.

In Case 2000, Yediot owner Mozes stood to gain indirectly by allegedly negotiating with Netanyahu to push forward a law that would force his paper’s main rival, Israel Hayom, to charge for their broadsheet. He was caught on tape discussing the issue with the prime minister.

Case 4000 charges that Elovitch personally gained hundreds of millions of shekels when government regulations were changed which allowed Bezeq to buy satellite cable provider Yes.

In both cases, Netanyahu allegedly obtained more positive press coverage in return.

However, the companies themselves either allegedly stood to profit or actually did profit greatly according to the indictments, and the law states that in such a case, the corporations must also face justice.

When Israel Hayom queried the justice ministry if Yediot Ahronot, Walla! and Bezeq would be prosecuted, the ministry answered that “a decision has yet been made in the matter.”

As it stands now, the indictment against Netanyahu does not mention the three media companies. Israel Hayom was the first to report that lawyer Michael Dvorin, a political-strategic adviser for the Likud, had sent a letter to Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit demanding that they be prosecuted as well.

Dvorin’s take on the cases against Netanyahu is that the law is not being equally applied to all politicians and the prime minister is being held to a higher, unfair standard.

In an interview with Globes in October, he gave several examples of MKs who were never investigated for similar actions, let alone indicted.

He began filing official complaints but “everyone in the law enforcement system ignored the evidence, the documents and the documentation.”

If his complaint bears fruit this time, the media companies could face millions, or even tens of millions of shekels in fines, Israel Hayom reported.

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