Adelson’s attorney says Jewish billionaire does not own Israel Hayom

An attorney for Sheldon Adelson told Israel’s Supreme Court that the Jewish American billionaire does not own the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom.

At a hearing Monday in the Supreme Court, attorney Avigdor Klagsbald said for the first time that the free daily newspaper is owned by an Adelson relative. Casino magnate Adelson has been cited frequently in media reports and has been widely represented by both critics and supporters as Israel HaYom’s owner.

The question of Adelson’s ownership of Israel Hayom, a right-wing newspaper widely considered to be a mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, came up during an appeal of a Jerusalem District Court ruling on a Freedom of Information petition.

Adeslon and Israel Hayom editor Amos Regev are challenging a ruling ordering the Prime Minister’s Office to release details of phone conversations between the two and Netanyahu after a petition for information from the Movement for the Freedom of Information, an Israeli NGO founded by Channel 10 political correspondent Raviv Drucker.

Klagsbald said the ruling should be vacated because it may be based on incorrect facts – including the misconception that Adelson owns Israel Hayom, Haaretz reported.

An article in December in the Las Vegas Review-Journal — which late last year was purchased by a media group owned by Adelson and his children — identified Adelson as the owner of Israel Hayom.

However, the Review-Journal noted that Israel HaYom is run by Sivan Ochshorn Dumont, a daughter of Adelson’s wife, Miriam, from a prior marriage.

Adelson told the Macau Daily Times last month that no one from his family has ever told journalists working Israel Hayom what to write.

“We have about 200 journalists at the Israel Today [the English name for Israel Hayom] newspaper. You could call any one of them and you say, ‘Did anybody from the Adelson family ever tell you what to write or what not to write?’ and they will tell you, ‘No.’ If somebody’s going to write something bad about me and there’s no justification for it, I won’t know about it until after it’s done,” he wrote.

Adelson, now 82, is noted for his right-wing views. In November 2014, he told the Israeli American Council in Washington that “the Palestinians are an invented people” and that “the purpose of the existence of Palestinians is to destroy Israel.”

He is a staunch supporter of Netanyahu and various pro-Israel and right-wing groups, as well as a contributor to the US Republican Party and to Jewish causes such as Birthright and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.