Top aide to Netanyahu turns state witness in graft scandal
JERUSALEM — One of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest and longest-serving aides appeared ready to incriminate him Wednesday after agreeing overnight to become a government witness, the latest twist in a spiraling graft scandal that seemed to dim Netanyahu’s legal and political chances of survival almost by the hour.
The fast-moving police inquiry into whether Netanyahu, already battling separate bribery allegations, had provided official favors to Israel’s largest telecommunications company, Bezeq, in exchange for fawning coverage on the company’s online news site prompted one member of the prime minister’s party to ask him to step aside and opposition politicians to call for early elections.
Netanyahu, who insists he has done nothing wrong, has faced corruption allegations periodically almost since first becoming prime minister in 1996. But the latest — with its suggestion of political payoffs to a company that bills ordinary Israeli voters every month — could prove the most damning. And as the revelations mounted, one on top of another like a tottering tower, Israelis expressed increasing doubt about Netanyahu’s ability to maintain his grip on power.
“It was like watching a police car chase in pursuit of a robber on one of America’s endless highways,” Sima Kadmon, a columnist, wrote in Wednesday’s Yedioth Ahronoth of the flurry of events of the day before. “Riveting hours of dramatic and fateful revelations that are going to change not only the life of the man behind the wheel, but the face of our country.”
The new state’s witness, Shlomo Filber — who goes by “Momo” — was director general of the Communications Ministry from 2015 until 2017, answering directly to Netanyahu, who at the time also held the title of communications minister. The ministry ruled or weighed in on a number of key regulatory decisions that provided enormous financial benefits to Bezeq and its controlling shareholder, Shaul Elovitch.
Filber, who was suspended from his post a few months ago as regulators from the Israel Securities Authority closed in, was arrested this week along with a number of other high-profile friends and confidants of Netanyahu, including Elovitch, members of his family and other senior Bezeq executives.
Filber’s testimony promised to connect the two main arms of the Bezeq affair: the Communications Ministry’s dealings with the company and the decisions taken by editors at Walla, its online news subsidiary, according to a person with intimate knowledge of the inquiry who was not authorized to speak about it publicly. In exchange, prosecutors agreed not to seek a prison sentence for Filber.
Such state’s witness agreements in Israel usually involve a criminal suspect giving up a bigger fish. Filber’s direct superior was Netanyahu.
Filber was expected to tell police that in his role at the ministry he was carrying out explicit and detailed instructions from Netanyahu, according to Israel’s Channel 2 evening news program, and that he came to realize he was being exploited.
Through a spokesman, Netanyahu responded, “It never happened.”
“The main question is, what does he know?” said Oren Gazal-Ayal, dean of the University of Haifa law faculty and a criminal-law specialist. “According to suspicion, Filber was the one offering Bezeq all the benefits. He changed the policies of the government from the minute he became director-general of the ministry. If Netanyahu changed the regulations to get good coverage, and you can prove that, that’s definitely a criminal offense.”