Israel Hayom editor Bismuth leaves; paper seen shifting a little away from Netanyahu

Israel Hayom editor Boaz Bismuth announced his departure Monday, during an apparent slight shift by the tabloid away its longtime staunch support of opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bismuth, 57, who helmed the paper for five years after an eight-year stint as international editor, said he was leaving to take on “new challenges” and recounted highlights of his period in the job, chief among them the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem.

“These have been challenging, fascinating and eventful years,” Bismuth said in a statement issued by the paper. “I reached a feeling of exhaustion. I gave my all, and now I face new challenges.”

An astute political observer who once served as Israel’s envoy to Mauritania, Bismuth was nonetheless criticized for his fawning coverage of Netanyahu, as well as of former US president Donald Trump. Even before he took over, the popular free tabloid was widely regarded as a mouthpiece for Netanyahu, and credited with helping bring the Likud leader back to power just a few years after it started operations, and helping sustain the Likud leader’s subsequent 12-year stint in office.

According to Hebrew media reports Monday, Bismuth’s departure is tied to a shift by the paper away from Netanyahu and toward Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, whose right-wing ideology dovetails with that of many of the paper’s columnists. Bismuth was seen as closely tied to Netanyahu.

On Friday, Israel Hayom, a free daily, was one of several papers to run wide-ranging interviews with Bennett.

Last week, Walla gossip editor David Vertheim tweeted that he was hearing from journalists there that a shift toward Bennett and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and away from Netanyahu was underway, and that by this week the paper would be fully in their corner. He later noted that Bismuth’s departure was tied to this shift.

Yair Netanyahu, the son of the former PM, also took note of the shift, tweeting that the paper is now “just another leftist outlet, and another propaganda tool for Bennett.”

Publisher Miriam Adelson, whose late husband Sheldon Adelson started the paper, said in a statement that Bismuth “performed his duties as a sense of mission and with excellence.”

She said Omer Lahmanovich will take over as acting editor.