Caroline Glick
JNS, June 12, 2022
“With the prosecution’s case now in ruins, we are left with their core claim—that it is a crime to fairly cover Netanyahu.”
Israeli democracy is hanging by a thread. That is the lesson of last Monday’s testimony by prosecution witness and former Communications Ministry director-general Shlomo Filber in former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial. Filber revealed that Netanyahu is not alone in the dock. Israel’s democracy is also on trial.
Benjamin Netanyahu is being tried for bribery and breach of trust. His co-defendants are two media moguls—Yediot Aharonot owner and publisher Arnon Mozes, and former owner and publisher of Walla News website (and Bezeq telecommunications company) Shaul Elovitch. The “crimes” they are accused of all relate to their desire to give voice—or consider giving voice—to positions and information ignored and silenced by the establishment media.
Filber explained, “The media has a leftist bias. The reason Netanyahu took the communications portfolio [in addition to the premiership] was to vary the opinions so that right-wing voters would have media organs that expressed their views.”
Filber added, “Netanyahu’s desire to solve the distortion in the media market burned inside him. It was more important to him ideologically than running the country. He believed that the leftist bias in the media prevented the political right from truly governing.”
Filber’s statement came after months of testimony by nearly 20 prosecution witnesses including himself. One by one, they have obliterated the prosecution’s case against Netanyahu. After years of an aggressive investigation, by 2018 the prosecution had nothing other than a few cigars from Netanyahu’s rich friend with which to indict him. Rather than call it a day, the prosecutors decided to reinvent the bribery statute for the purpose of indicting a sitting prime minister.
Caroline Glick is an award-winning columnist and author of “The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.”
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