Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never registered any of the conversations he had with Yediot Aharonot owner Arnon “Noni” Mozes as having an aura of bribery, nor did he hint or speak, he said from the witness stand in the Tel Aviv District Court on Tuesday, on the 34th day of his criminal trial testimony hearings.
Allegedly, Mozes offered a bribe to Netanyahu by proposing positive coverage of him and his family in the prominent daily and negative coverage of political opponents, in exchange for the advancement of legislation that would force restrictions on Yediot’s rival daily tabloid, Israel Hayom.
The charges are based on recordings of conversations between the two, recorded by Netanyahu staffer-turned-state’s-witness Ari Harow. Netanyahu was charged with fraud and breach of trust, while Mozes was charged with attempted bribery.
This series of questioning, by the representatives of the three other defendants in the trial - Mozes, Shaul, and Iris Elovich, which took place last week, is set to conclude today. The trial will head into cross-examination by the prosecution next week.
This next stage will determine the course of Netanyahu’s legacy and political future. The goal of Sharon Kleinman, Mozes’s representative, is to disprove the indictment’s claim that Mozes offered a bribe to the prime minister
Kleinman asked Netanyahu about his relationship with Sheldon Adelson, the late owner of Israel Hayom, as well as the paper’s then editor-in-chief, Amos Regev.
Netanyahu explained their relationship, when it came to media coverage, similarly to how he said he spoke of Elovich when it came to Walla: “I tried to pivot anyone I knew to the Israeli media scene. I told him [Adelson], ‘Try to invest as much as you can in Israeli journalism,’” he said.
He added that he tried to broaden the journalistic landscape as much as possible, especially when it came to print news. “The situation was ridiculous then, as it is today,” he said.
Netanyahu insinuated, though, that he wasn’t involved in the nitty-gritty of the tabloid, didn’t track its print growth in real time, and that he didn’t assert that Mozes stood behind the legislation against it.
“I knew it [Israel Hayom’s growth] bothered Mozes, but it didn’t reach serious points. Either way, it wasn’t something I dealt with,” he said.
“In the broader media landscape, any legislation wouldn’t have mattered or made a difference. Israel Hayom was a beast in the media that wasn’t getting stopped by anything,” he added.
Netanyahu repeated what he said in previous testimonies, that he saw Mozes as the figure truly guiding the emerging alliance between his two rivals at the time, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, through the coverage in his paper.
“My interest when it came to Israel Hayom was to have a place for right-wing opinions and editorial stances to exist, which there was no landing spot for at the time,” he said.
“Objectivity doesn’t exist in journalism. Newspapers are always personal, and that’s not a bad thing; there should be space for the entire political spectrum,” he added.
Netanyahu said that he had no recollection of conversations with Mozes discussing the problem Israel Hayom posed.
Kleiman pointed out that the recording of this discussion was never presented to Netanyahu in his interrogations, and that of the conversations between the two, only select sections of them were presented to the prime minister during questioning. The specific meeting she referenced was in a transcript put together in 2019.
Referencing the recorded fourth meeting between Netanyahu and Mozes, which contains the line that the bribery charge is based on - “I will do my utmost [to make you prime minister]” - Kleinman asked Netanyahu what he understood Mozes’s intention to be with this line.
“I never took this as bribery. I saw it as a general statement that he would try to get to it, not at all something specific. I didn’t take it that seriously, nor did anybody else,” Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
Separately, following a slew of objections and repeated clashes between the prosecution and the defense over the past few hearings, lead Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman called for calm, asked the prosecution to be “flexible,” and that if the defense questions don’t stray too much from their intended format, that the prosecution let it slide.
Protestors criticise Netanyahu
Asaf Agmon, the grandfather of slain soldier Gur Kehati, who was killed when the IDF operated in southern Lebanon in November 2024, yelled towards Netanyahu as he exited the room during a break, “Take off the hostage pin! I brought you flip flops that I bought with my own money, not with Qatari money!”
Netanyahu supporters scuffled with Agmon. Kehati was killed when a group of soldiers fought Hezbollah fighters, and archaeologist Ze'ev Erlich was killed; Kehati was nearby and was killed in the attack.
Criticism later arose towards the IDF for allowing the entry of a civilian into an active war zone, and particularly by Kehati's family, which saw the decision as what cost Gur his life.
Outside the courthouse, protesters chanted, “Netanyahu, you abandoned the hostages!”