Reporters lash PM for whining about media 'not covering' Russia trip

Netanyahu complains on Facebook that press ‘ignored’ last week’s state visit to Moscow, despite extensive coverage

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Russia last week with a gaggle of Israeli reporters in tow for a state visit to Moscow that received extensive coverage in the Hebrew press. But that didn’t stop the prime minister from complaining on Facebook on Tuesday about how the Israeli media ignored the “historic visit I made in Russia to mark 25 years of renewed ties.”

“It was an exciting visit full of significant accomplishments,” Netanyahu wrote in a post in Hebrew, accompanied by a video. “A deal on the pensions that constitutes a historic improvement for tens of thousands of Russian immigrants, agreements concerning technology, tourism and agriculture to strengthen the ties between Russia and Israel, tightening of defense ties between the IDF and the Russian army, and the return of the Israeli tank that was the last testament to our missing [soldiers] from the battle of Sultan Yacoub.”

Flabbergasted, the Israel Diplomatic Correspondents Association on Wednesday sent a letter to Netanyahu’s office expressing outrage at the affront.

The association “firmly rejected the accusations, and protests the prime minister’s delegitimization of the Israeli media’s professional and appropriate work,” it said in the letter to Netanyahu’s media chief, Boaz Stembler.

Benjamin Netanyahu complains of poor press coverage for his June 2016 visit to Russia, in a video published on his Facebook page on June 14, 2016 (screen capture)

“Some of the news outlets ran over 20 pieces on the subject last week, including significant attention to the relations between the two states, an expansive report on the joint press conference between [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the prime minister, which was broadcast live by several media outlets, a broad review of the story of the tank from Sultan Yacoub, the concert at the Bolshoi Theater, and Israel’s public advocacy exhibition,” said the signatories, a group of reporters including The Times of Israel’s diplomatic correspondent, Raphael Ahren.

IDF tank captured by Syrian forces in 1982, returned by Russia on June 8, 2016. (Raphael Ahren/Times of Israel)

Even the unwaveringly pro-Netanyahu newspaper Israel Hayom’s diplomatic correspondent was among the signatories.

“The prime minister’s remarks would have been amusing if they didn’t constitute flagrant incitement against reporters and against the principle of free press in a democratic state,” the reporters said in their letter.

They noted that the organization includes reporters representing a wide spectrum of perspectives, who “are united in the opinion that they don’t want ‘free press’ like there is in Russia.”