‘J’accuse...!’ Netanyahu’s trial hears witnesses, and the public will hear what the cases are about
There have been many firsts in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal cases.
He was the first sitting prime minister to be indicted by the attorney-general and the first who was forced to appear in pretrial hearings in the dock as a defendant.
But when Ilan Yeshua, the former Walla CEO, ascends the witness stand on Monday to testify before the Jerusalem District Court, that will be by far the most important and historic first moment.
In fact, the only larger moment may be the verdict and sentence (if there is a conviction) sometime between mid-2022 and early 2024.
If convicted of bribery, Netanyahu will be forced from office and likely serve jail time, and Monday’s hearing pushes that train forward.
From Monday’s first witness, it is no longer a particular journalist leaking transcripts, or prosecutors Liat Ben-Ari and Yehudit Tirosh summarizing allegations in court.
Rather, it is hundreds of witnesses who will tell the tale – granular detail after granular detail.
The witnesses are expected to include former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, former ambassador to the US Ron Dermer, former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Yuval Diskin, former national security adviser Uzi Arad, World Jewish Congress president and onetime Netanyahu supporter Ron Lauder and tycoons Arnon Milchan, James Packer and Spencer Partridge.
Yeshua’s story
Yeshua will testify about the Bezeq-Walla media bribery affair, Case 4000, which is paralleled by the Yediot Aharonot-Israel Hayom attempted media bribery affair, Case 2000.
In the abstract, Netanyahu’s lawyers Boaz Ben Zur and Amit Hadad had many strong defenses against the allegations that he helped Bezeq owner Shaul Elovitch get NIS 1 billion in value out of communications policies favoring him, in exchange for positive media coverage from Elovitch’s Walla media outlet.
When the battle is short media interviews and video clips on Facebook, it is enough for the prime minister and his lawyers to claim that there is no such thing as media bribery and that this is a politicized witch hunt.
Ashkelon mayor Itamar Shimoni was also put on trial for media bribery, so Netanyahu is not the first.
Even if Netanyahu had been the first, speaking about how unfair it is in the abstract is not the same as having to contend with the highly specific story that Yeshua will tell.
According to the amended indictment, from January 17 to 19, 2013 – days before the January 22, 2013, election – Netanyahu, through middleman Zeev Rubinstein, made no fewer than six demands for Walla owner Shaul Elovitch to influence media coverage positively for him and negatively relating to Naftali Bennett and the Bayit Yehudi Party.
Rubinstein was a longtime friend of Netanyahu and Elovitch and also had business connections to Elovitch.
All of the Netanyahu-Rubinstein-Elovitch plans led to the coverage the prime minister wanted, including negative coverage of Bennett’s wife allegedly eating at a nonkosher restaurant.
The one exception was a request slandering Bennett’s father, which Rubinstein apparently blocked.
Yeshua, and later other editors and reporters from Walla, are expected to give a detailed description of exactly how they went about fulfilling Netanyahu’s demands, which included numerous takedowns of articles which were good for his competitors.
They will say they knew that these changes went far beyond the typical access for coverage arrangements that other politicians regularly make with the media, which, for one, do not lead to reducing coverage for competitors.
On the critical days of January 21-22, 2013, Rubinstein made several Netanyahu demands directly through Yeshua himself.
These demands included: prominent coverage of Netanyahu being endorsed by then-Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat, prominent posting of multiple videos of Netanyahu at the Western Wall and at his polling station, and taking down posted videos of Bennett and President Reuven Rivlin on Election Day.
Yeshua will again testify in detail about how exactly this went down and how obvious it was that this systematic manipulation of coverage on all ends was not part of the normal balance of access for coverage.
On January 30, 2014, the entire weekend magazine was removed from the Walla website in order to take down two negative op-eds relating to Netanyahu.
According to the indictment, all of this stemmed from a December 27, 2012, dinner of the prime minister and his wife, Sara, in which they hosted Elovitch and his wife, Iris.
It is one thing to say in the abstract that media bribery does not exist. But how will Netanyahu be able to cope with the volume of 315 varied, constant and systemic demands and control over Walla coverage of him and his political adversaries?
The former Walla CEO’s testimony to police helped break open aspects of Case 4000 in statements to police in 2018. This led police to former Netanyahu spokesman Nir Hefetz, and eventually to the prime minister himself.
Yeshua was an important cog, and his falling out with Elovitch in 2017 over the ongoing demands to please Netanyahu was critical.
But he was only one piece of many in the alleged Elovitch-Netanyahu media bribery scheme of positive coverage in exchange for the government catering its policies to benefit Bezeq, also owned by Elovitch.