From the Liveblog of
Monday, December 1, 2025
At court, Netanyahu clashes with prosecutor: ‘You’ve lied throughout this entire case’
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
The prosecutor in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal trial accuses him of not telling the truth when he repeatedly told the Jerusalem District Court during his primary testimony that he believed the Walla News website was unimportant, as he sought to undermine accusations he had heavily pressured the site in the past to change unflattering news stories.
Annoyed, Netanyahu shoots back: “You accused me of making a false statement. You’ve lied throughout this entire case.”
Yehudit Tirosh of the State Attorney’s Office points out that despite Netanyahu having stated on numerous occasions that Walla was a news outlet to hostile him and that he only gave interviews to the website during elections, he actually did conduct at least one interview with the outlet outside of an election period, and shared a link to the interview on social media.
“We see that you said incorrect things in primary testimony, that you didn’t interview [with Walla outside of an election period]. This interview was very interesting for you. You were interviewed and shared specifically this interview with Walla and not interviews done in parallel with television stations,” Tirosh tells the court, according to the Maariv news outlet.
The prime minister lashes out at Tirosh, accusing the prosecution of having deviated from accepted practice in filing its indictment and of acting dishonestly.
“They [Walla] made many requests for interviews and I refused to interview with them for years… So [maybe] I accepted more than once, big deal. It is a hostile site,” Netanyahu adds.
One of the key charges against Netanyahu is that he accepted a bribe, in the form of positive media coverage by Walla, in return for granting regulatory benefits to Walla owner Shaul Elovitch regarding his business interests, including his stake in the Bezeq telecom giant.
Netanyahu and his defense team argued in the prime minister’s primary testimony that Walla’s coverage of Netanyahu had very often been very negative and antagonistic to him.
The judges in the case recommended in 2023 that the prosecution drop the bribery charge, although the prosecution declined. Netanyahu is also charged with fraud and breach of trust in the same case.
The Times of Israel Community.