Netanyahu’s trial: Today (Tuesday), for the second day in a row, the state witness in the 4,000 Nir Hefetz case appeared on the witness stand in the Jerusalem District Court and will continue to testify. Hefetz testifies to his time as communications adviser to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to his relationship with Bezeq CEO Shaul Elowitz and the Walla website at the time.
Regular updates from the discussion:
13:40: At this point, Hefetz was removed from the courtroom, with the State Attorney’s Office trying to establish that Sarah Netanyahu’s instructions to Hefetz led him to actions on the issue of helping Elowitz and therefore on Benjamin Netanyahu’s awareness of the issue. Tabenkin: “There is considerable circumstantial weight on Netanyahu’s mindset and circle of associates. Sarah is not a prosecution witness because she cannot testify. Judge Shaham: “We want us to hear what is going on in the application, but not to determine the awareness of a person who is not a witness.” Afterwards, Hefetz is returned to the courtroom.
13:20: After the break in the hearing, the judges criticized the prosecution, which claimed that Hefetz’s testimony about Sarah Netanyahu’s demands was based on evidence of her husband’s awareness of her demands from Elowitz. Judge Baram: “This is a problematic direction. I do not understand, you are asking the court to convict Netanyahu based on events that the prosecution attributes to his wife? She is not charged. How do you base the knowledge between what he knew and what she said? If things were said in Netanyahu’s presence- So I can understand, but they were not said in Netanyahu’s presence. “
The criticism came after Hefetz testified that “at one point Sarah asked me to tell Pilber to turn off the Bezeq Group regulatory tap. It is important for me to emphasize that it was Sarah and not Benjamin Netanyahu. I was never asked by Benjamin Netanyahu to send a message to Alovich in the regulatory field.”
11:30: Hefetz continues his testimony, which now deals with the former prime minister’s intervention in Walla’s appointments. Advocate Tabenkin asked if he remembered to request applications regarding the appointment of Aviram Elad and the witness replied: “Elowitz and Yeshua approached me to help them obtain approval from Netanyahu and his wife. Salvation described him as a combat unit or even a cruiser. Salt of the earth, a man who knows how to work. I did not know Elad and if I am asked to recommend, then I perform a test. I did not know who the person was. “I called Eran Tipinborn and he told me that Aviram Elad is clearly a leftist. I said that to Benjamin Netanyahu and I do not remember what happened next.”
“I had a lot of affection for Tiefenborn. I worked with him in the past and asked Malowitz, who in response told me to pass it to the prime minister for approval. There was strong opposition from Netanyahu and there it fell, because Netanyahu did not give it the approval.” At this point, Advocate Jacques Chen erupts: “It was not said in the interrogations, the prosecution invites him to say things! It feeds endless writing about the bodies of the defendants and representatives.”
Tabenkin: “Do you remember that Elowitz or Yeshua asked for names so that there would be reporters in Walla?”. After the witness replied no, Tabenkin mentioned things said by Hefetz during the interrogation, the witness replied: “There was a kind of Likud activist named Avihu … I do not remember the last name that at the request of Elowitz and Netanyahu I asked him to write how many columns he wrote several columns.”
Tabenkin: “During the interrogation, you said that they asked you to pass on the names of writers to Netanyahu.” Hefetz: “I do not remember. What I do remember is that Netanyahu acted to include writers who are identified with his line, but it was not only in Walla.” Asked whether he had received requests for approval from Netanyahu from media outlets other than Walla, Hefetz replied in the negative.
10:30: Jacques Chen: “That the court will pay attention to the conduct and harsh statements of the prosecution. This is not something that can be passed on to the agenda.” The head of the panel responded: “Each of you has complaints about the other. That’s what we heard here other minutes. What’s my lord’s request?”. Chen: “The situation here is not simple, it is impossible for them to continue to move around when the clear and decisive impression is that the prosecution allows itself to be humiliated.” Friedman: “If someone is excited that they were not treated with respect, we hope it will not be. We are done with that.” She then instructed the object to return to testify.
Hefetz: “I ask that the considerations be taken into account. It is clear to me that there is a cross-examination, I understand that I was out there.
The witness then goes back to describing Yair Netanyahu’s relationship with the Walla !: “When he thinks a site like Walla is hostile to his father, or very inclined to the left, he tries to convince his parents.” Tabenkin: “To what extent did he share these positions with his father?”. Hefetz responds: “It was in his discourse all the time. There was an argument between us that included his parents, that he was trying to say that Walla was wrong and not giving anything in return for what they were getting, I said that Elowitz goes out of his way and does his best. “
Hefetz describes two events, which testify to the conduct as he presented it: “I was sitting in the study in Balfour, Yair came in with a printed page from the Walla website and told me, ‘After everything you did for Elowitz, look what they are publishing.’ He defied the fact that I claim they are trying. This was no exception for Yair. Sarah Netanyahu was also present at the second event and she remarked to him that even people do not talk like that. “Benjamin Netanyahu did not respond to Yair at all, he was silent.”
Hefetz added that “until the 2015 elections, dealing with Walla was Netanyahu’s initiative, after the election the importance of the site decreased in his eyes.
During the trial, correspondence between Nir Hefetz and Yair Netanyahu about articles in Walla was revealed, when Yair wrote: “I have not seen such a propaganda article for Lapid in a long time.” And “I think it’s a terrorist site.” “They are not just calling their antisemitic website Walla is Akbar, they earned it honestly” Nir Hefetz was wrong because “there were disagreements about whether Walla serves Netanyahu or not.”
10:00: An argument developed between defense attorneys and the prosecution over a question Tabenkin asked, and the spirits heated up. Following the judges’ objections, Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman said, “Adv. Ben Tzur, we went through this objection ten times yesterday, although today is a new day, a wonderful day, but there is a limit to how many times you can oppose, we repeat the same things, there is a limit and an end. There is a lot of patience but there is also a limit. “Attorney Jacques Chen, representing Shaul Elowitz, responded and removed witness Hefetz, and Attorney Ben Tzur commented:” Take the recording device with you. “
Advocate Liat Ben-Ari reacted sharply to the conduct: “The conduct of my friends is simply disrespectful. What they are doing here and how they are going against the accuser. Not from today I appear in the courts both as a defense attorney and as a prosecutor, these are things I have not seen. When my good friend Michal Rosen says it helps that we do illegal things and disrupt the trial there is a limit. I ask your honor to preserve our honor. The things that stand out here are downright unacceptable and basic respect is something we all need to maintain. “
09:40: Hefetz continued his testimony about the working relationship with Yair Netanyahu and his dissatisfaction with Walla’s coverage: “Until March 2015, there was relative satisfaction, with the exception of one interview with Dov Gilhar. The allegations came only after the election. In terms of influence on Sarah, Up in the skies of influence on media policy and his father’s actions – she too settled down. She has an independent opinion, at first she was closer to her husband in opinion, but as time went on, she was closer to her son’s opinion. “.
“In the dormitory case, it was not possible to breathe at all without tying a permit from Benjamin Netanyahu,” added Hefetz, who claimed that “it was a procedure that he led in countless conference calls. Before anything else, there was a brawl with the lawyers who dealt with the issue.”
On Ilan Yeshua, Hefetz added: “It was a case of the calf wanting to suckle at least as much as the cow wanted to breastfeed. He went out of his way to show that he was putting the site at Netanyahu’s service. After Shlomo Pilber took office and the Likud won the election, it dropped. “Yeshua emphasized many times that there are over a million surfers a day and during the election campaign it was very intense, he asked us to convey to Netanyahu how much they help, how much they leave items in the headline even though it is not acceptable.”
Ilan Yeshua, former Walla CEO in court (Photo: Shalom Shalom / TPS)Hefetz: “Yair Netanyahu’s disgust with the media extends to a broad group such as Channel 12. For example, there are media outlets that have already given them up, such as Channel 10 at the time.”
09:25: Advocate Amir Tabenkin of the State Attorney’s Office asked Hefetz how involved Benjamin Netanyahu was in decisions concerning family-related articles: fire Department. There I had a mandate not to involve him because it was a positive knowledge. Everything else had to go through Netanyahu, it stemmed from the instruction I received on all media issues. He asked us to interrupt him, to insert notes during discussions as well“.
Tabenkin pressed hard and asked: “To what extent did Netanyahu know that you were independently handling his wife’s inquiries. The state witness replied:” It’s all his instructions on what is allowed and what is not. He wanted to be in complete control of the media. “
In addition, he told how the media issue worked around the son of the former prime minister, Yair Netanyahu. “I always turned to Netanyahu and asked how to proceed. There is no dispute who gives the instructions, but since the relationship was intense and open, it was his business when to turn and to whom, but even if there were complaints, he was the one who made the decisions. .
09:10: Hefetz opened the day of his second testimony, when he spoke about the method of working with Walla: “Mr. Elowitz received 100% of the messages I conveyed to the prime minister and his family. Ilan Yeshua also received most of them, but there is a huge gap between Elowitz that I was completely open with and Yeshua. “To someone from whom there is no chance that things will come out, I treated salvation with suspicion and distrust and I was right about that.”
Ahead of the hearing, Hefetz tweeted this morning a number of threats he received on social media, adding: “It is not clear what prevents the police from dealing with these rioters (and if some of them are blatant – whoever is behind them).”
It is not clear what prevents the police from dealing with these rioters (and if some of them are blatant – who is behind them). pic.twitter.com/jGG8slxyq1
– Nir Hefez (@NirHefez) November 23, 2021
After a week’s delay, yesterday morning state witness Nir Hefetz appeared at the witness stand in the Jerusalem District Court, and began to testify against opposition chairman Benjamin Netanyahu in the 4000 case.
Hefetz, who was Netanyahu’s close spokesman and adviser for years while serving as prime minister, spoke about his relationship with Netanyahu and his family, the role he held for him as a communications consultant and the relationship with the controlling shareholder of Bezeq and the Walla! At that time Shaul Elowitz.
According to the indictment, Netanyahu granted Elowitz regulatory benefits worth more than NIS 1 billion in exchange for an unusual response to the family’s demands regarding the coverage on the site. For the first time, Netanyahu appeared in the courtroom during the testimony, after receiving permission to be absent from previous hearings in the case. About two hours later he left.
Hefetz’s testimony was scheduled to begin last week, but the court granted the defense attorneys’ request and postponed its commencement following the leaks of the investigation materials published in the media.
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