Netanyahu's cross-examination: Will the prime minister's trial tear him down?

Yahoo

30-05-2025

The prosecution's chance to try to tear down Netanyahu's narrative at trial is the moment the PM has dreaded since 2016.
There have been so many historic moments in the public corruption saga surrounding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the upcoming one may be the most important of all.
The trial has gone on so long that it started when he was prime minister in 2020, continued through the entire June 2021-December 2022 that he was out of office, and has continued throughout his entire new current term. The prosecution brought witnesses from April 2021 to summer 2024, and after a several-month recess, which was granted to Netanyahu's lawyers to prepare, the prime minister has been presenting his side of the case since December 2024.
And yet, the moment that he will be cross-examined by the state prosecution next week may be the most decisive moment of the trial and the most impactful on the verdict, and thus on Netanyahu's political fate and the fate of the country.
To date, the prosecution has scored some big wins in Case 1000, the Illegal Gifts Affair. Netanyahu always had a big advantage in Case 2000, the Yediot Ahronot-Yisrael Hayom attempted media bribery affair, and has probably retained that advantage, with few expecting a conviction in that case.
Case 4000 has been more of a split. The prosecution has 'drawn blood' in the legal sense for a potential conviction for the minor charge of breach of trust but appears to be losing on the major charge of media bribery.
SIZING ALL of that up together, in June 2023 the three judges presiding over the case – Jerusalem District Court President Rivka Friedman-Feldman, Judge Moshe Baram, and Judge Oded Shaham – tried to get the sides to cut a plea bargain relatively friendly to Netanyahu to make the case go away.
Friedman-Feldman is not afraid to convict high-level officials; she was one of the judges who sent former prime minister Ehud Olmert to jail for public corruption.
So this clearly suggests she saw major holes in the largest charge in the case – media bribery for Case 4000 – and viewed the more minor charges of breach of trust in the various cases as matters that might not lead to jail time and might not disqualify Netanyahu from remaining in public office.
Based on that, the judges had recommended that the state prosecution cut a deal where Netanyahu would confess to some breach of trust charges but would escape jail time and escape a finding of moral turpitude – meaning he would be able to continue his role as prime minister.
The prosecution flatly rejected that offer. Why?
Some of it is a moral statement that they wanted the full case heard in open court and the judges to render a public judgment for the nation on the corruption affairs.
But much of it was because they knew they would have a shot at Netanyahu on cross-examination – the moment that has arrived.
One crucial, unanswered question is whether the prosecution – now having suffered nearly six months of being hammered by the master messenger, Netanyahu himself – wishes it had taken that June 2023 plea deal.
The premier started testifying in December 2024.
Most of his narrative has been relatively simple.
In Case 4000, he has said that the media has always been biased against him and that all he was trying to do in pushing Yediot Ahronot (Case 2000) or Walla (Case 4000) to give him more positive coverage was to even the playing field so that the coverage of him would be less biased.
According to Netanyahu's testimony, even after all his efforts, neither Yediot nor Walla 'paid off' for him, with both still generally having given him negative coverage and having only limited 'wins' in pushing back on the left-wing bias against him.
So, he says, if they did not even report so positively about him, how can anyone claim bribery?
Moreover, Netanyahu testified that even if he had made several small attempts to balance general media coverage, he was not involved in the 315 specific charges of media bribery interference into specific articles attributed by the prosecution to his lieutenants or the 150 charges where the prosecution insists he was personally involved.
Rather, Netanyahu testified that his many lieutenants – Zeev Rubinstein; Nir Hefetz; his wife, Sara Netanyahu; son Yair Netanyahu; and some others – acted without his knowledge to try to balance media coverage, and that as premier he has far more important matters taking up his day.
According to the amended indictment, from January 17-19, 2013 – days before the January 22, 2013 election – Netanyahu, through middle man Rubinstein, made six demands for Walla owner Shaul Elovitch to influence media coverage positively for him and negatively relating to Naftali Bennett and his Bayit Yehudi Party.
Rubinstein was a longtime friend of Netanyahu's, and Elovitch and had business connections to the latter.
Nearly all of the plans of Netanyahu, Rubinstein, and Elovitch led to the coverage the prime minister wanted, such as negative coverage of Bennett's wife allegedly eating at a non-kosher restaurant, which the prosecution has sought to prove with various witnesses.
Walla CEO Ilan Yeshua, and later other editors and reporters from the media group, gave a detailed description of exactly how they went about fulfilling Netanyahu's demands, which included numerous take-downs of articles that were good for his competitors.
These changes went far beyond the typical access for coverage arrangements that other politicians regularly make with the media, which for one, does not lead to reducing coverage for competitors, the prosecution has argued.
In contrast, Netanyahu testified that Rubinstein either acted independently or under orders from Sara Netanyahu, and that she also acted independently.
The prime minister also said that if he personally had wanted to influence coverage, he would have called Elovitch, the owner, as he did with Yisrael Hayom, where he would call Sheldon Adelson directly when he had a problem with the outlet's coverage.
Also, Netanyahu testified that the extent of his relationship with Elovitch was more focused on what he saw as Walla's potential as a whole.
He noted in one of his testimonies that 'Walla could have been what today is Channel 14' and that he saw in Elovitch someone who had a similar political orientation to his own but was afraid to advance it in the news outlet he owned, leading to what his defense team showed was negative coverage.
REGARDING BENNETT, Netanyahu noted a fawning interview by Walla, saying that the outlet was overtly campaigning for him and not for Netanyahu.
In general, the prosecution's approach to specific incidents of positive coverage for Netanyahu's rivals or negative coverage of him by Walla has been to argue that it doesn't matter if he influenced all of the coverage by the outlet to go his way. Rather, the prosecution has said all that matters is that his alleged deal with Elovitch, which used positive policy moves for the media mogul as a quid pro quo, substantially influenced the coverage by Walla.
Put differently, a media bribery scheme is still a media bribery scheme, even if it only succeeds part of the time.
According to prosecution testimony, all of this stemmed from a December 27, 2012, dinner of the prime minister and his wife, in which they hosted Elovitch and his wife, Iris – which the prime minister denies and frames sarcastically as the prosecution's 'telepathy charges.'
Netanyahu highlighted that in one case where he did speak to Elovitch to get Walla to cover a ruling by the Israeli Election Commission against Bennett posting flyers of Netanyahu-Bennett together, most of the rest of the media covered the story as well – and covered it earlier and in more detail.
According to Netanyahu and his lawyer Amit Hadad, if there was a media bribery scheme, it would be unthinkable that Walla would post about this story later and in less detail than other outlets – which is what happened.
Also, regarding the Barkat endorsement, Netanyahu said he was not involved in the request and that Walla only published a short news-flash item about it, when other media outlets gave the endorsement more extensive coverage.
The biggest problem for Netanyahu in this part of the case is Hefetz.
Netanyahu can say that Hefetz made up lots of things, but his former aide has said that Netanyahu is a control freak who would never let him or any other lieutenants act alone with the media.
He also has given granular details that make his narrative believable, such as testifying that Netanyahu 'sat next to me' while they edited a video draft of an interview 'on my laptop' which the prime minister had given to Walla but was unhappy with.
Hefetz referred to the dynamics surrounding an interview Netanyahu gave to Walla on March 11, 2015, leading into the March 17 elections as an example of 'Walla being completely enlisted for Netanyahu's reelection.'
The premier was furious at the Walla reporter for interrupting some of his answers, noted Hefetz, and 'exploded' afterward, originally ordering that the news outlet be prohibited from airing the interview at all.
Eventually the interview aired, but only after the heavy personal editing by Netanyahu, Hefetz said. Netanyahu's spokespeople did not reveal how he will defend against this.
Bezeq gov't policy charges and how Netanyahu responded in his direct testimony.
Regarding the testimony of his former aides Hefetz and Shlomo Filber against him in improperly directing government telecommunications policy in favor of Elovitch's company Bezeq, Netanyahu testified that they were forced to lie.
The prime minister said that, like former adviser and chief of staff Ari Harow, Hefetz was caught by trumped-up crimes by the police so that he would give false testimony against him.
'I was angered by him,' said Netanyahu, but later 'I understood that he had to lie.'
He clarified that 'at first, I was very angry with him, but after seeing the torture he went through I understood the circumstances in which he was forced to satisfy his investigators.'
Netanyahu said that elements of Hefetz's testimony, such as claims that 2013-era regulatory policy was adjusted in Bezeq's favor to benefit Elovitch, were intended to please investigators.
Hefetz had also testified that he would speak to Netanyahu and his wife about how to please Bezeq before contacting Filber. Netanyahu said that the supposed chain of communications was ridiculous.
The prime minister slammed the probes into his regulatory policies as stalling progress to improve the country's Internet infrastructure.
Netanyahu also got some unexpected help from Filber.
Following Hefetz's testimony, Filber was expected to testify that on May 17, 2015, as soon as Netanyahu formed a new government, he fired Avi Berger and replaced him with Filber to carry out Elovitch's wishes regarding Bezeq.
Filber was also supposed to testify that shortly after that on June 7, he was called to a special meeting with Netanyahu, during which the scheme was hatched.
But Filber ended up calling into doubt the date of the meeting, as well as whether Netanyahu's instructions to him were merely designed to help Elovitch or were also good policy.
Messing with the date made the prosecution look amateurish. And if Netanyahu's moves were also good policy, then much of Case 4000, certainly the most serious and jail-worthy bribery charge, falls apart.
And yet, Filber still provided the prosecution with some real 'legal ammunition' against Netanyahu.
In one instance, he testified that his former boss called him on a Saturday night in 2016 screaming, 'Who is this Haran? What is this Haran? What is he doing there? All kinds of sentences which were not clear.'
Netanyahu was referring to then-Communications Ministry deputy director-general for economic affairs Haran Levaot, who was leading efforts to force Bezeq to accept a number of reforms and was trying to slow or block an allegedly problematic Bezeq-YES merger, along with a majority of the ministry's other professional level staff.
The prosecution presented Netanyahu's alleged 2016 call to Filber as powerful evidence that even after their initial meeting in June 2015, in which the former prime minister allegedly ordered him to favor Bezeq in government policy for the media bribery scheme, Netanyahu took strong actions going forward to ensure that Filber carried out his orders.
The problem for Netanyahu in saying that
lied here is that his former aide tried to help him in many areas of testimony. This would make it seem like Filber didn't make up allegations that he stuck to which harmed him.
Netanyahu's spokespeople did not reveal how he will defend against this, either.
From 2011-2016, Netanyahu allegedly received from billionaire Arnon Milchin NIS 267,254 ($75,700) in cigars, and Sara Netanyahu received NIS 184,448 ($52,200) worth of champagne.
He and his family also received another NIS 229,174 ($64,900) in champagne and cigars from billionaire James Packer between 2014 and 2016.
For Case 1000, Netanyahu has stuck to the narrative that he and Arnon Milchin were friends and that all the champagne, cigars, and jewelry he and Sara were given was typical for a super-wealthy friend like Milchin.
He has called Milchin's aide, Hadas Klein, a liar and said that the narratives she told where she interacted with him directly about the gifts were made up.
In one instance, Klein testified in July 2022 that 'Mr. Netanyahu called me from his office, I said to him that I had been [unfairly] hit with threatening screams [by Sara Netanyahu] and that I had received a very difficult call over something where I had done nothing wrong. He said to me that I just did not understand' and that Klein should give Sara all the cigars and champagne she wanted because they had gotten it approved by a legal adviser.
This all played out as Milchin had gotten sick of the years of required 'gifts' and told her to tell Sara that they would need to stop giving the gifts or reduce the volume because they were getting suspicious questions from their accountant about the legality.
Sara pushed back and eventually allegedly took out her anger on Klein, according to her court testimony.
A major question for the cross-examination stage of the trial is: Will Netanyahu be his own worst enemy?
Basically, the prosecution has proven that Hefetz and Filber each undertook potentially criminal actions which could be the separate parts of a media bribery scheme.
What Netanyahu has been counting on to beat back the bribery charge is that his aggressive testimony since December caused the judges to: 1) doubt that he knew what Hefetz and Filber were trying to do; 2) doubt that he realized that his or their actions could be interpreted as a crime; or 3) be convinced that they made up various stories against Netanyahu to save their own skin from charges against themselves.
In determining this issue for the judges, Netanyahu's cross-examination, which he cannot be fully prepared for and which he will sometimes need to respond to spontaneously, could be much more decisive than his testimony on his behalf, which was well prepared and coordinated.
In the Holyland trial a decade ago, former prime minister Ehud Olmert thought that he was such a spectacular spin doctor that his testimony would help him torpedo the public corruption trial against him.
It turned out that this made Olmert his own worst enemy.
He presented himself as the smartest person in the room, with a condescending comeback to every single move by the prosecution, and he barely hid his indignation to the court itself for holding the trial. This made it harder to convince the court that he was ignorant of all of the wrongdoing around him.
At one point, that court's judge, David Rozen, even advised him to leave legal arguments to his lawyers and to only discuss his personal knowledge.
Netanyahu has also denigrated the prosecution regularly and sometimes put down the court itself. Rather than satisfying himself with narrow modest legal claims in which he admits the truth of aspects of claims against him by some of his former aides, he has often said that all or nearly all of what they said were lies.
He has skillfully dissected dozens of media articles that the prosecution presented against him, but then claimed that in real time he had no idea that his aides were taking actions regarding these articles.
Netanyahu has also claimed that he did not care about how he was portrayed, when at other times he has made it clear that he has worked to transform the media sector more than any other prior prime minister. 