Israel Hayom pulls archive after revelations on calls between PM, editor

The Israel Hayom daily removes its public archive of past editions from its website, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to release the dates of his phone conversations with owner Sheldon Adelson and former editor-in-chief Amos Regev.

Only editions published in 2017 are now available.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court accepted an appeal by Channel 10 investigative journalist Raviv Drucker and ordered Netanyahu to release the information on the phone calls, citing public interest.

The full log, released on Sunday, reveals that Netanyahu held a total of 120 phone conversations with Adelson between 2012-2015 and 223 with Regev during during the same time period.

In many of the cases, late-night phone calls were followed by Israel Hayom front pages praising the prime minister, attacking his detractors or even quoting unnamed sources providing dubious revelations about dramatic political developments.

The online archive has allowed journalists to check the dates of the phone calls against the next day’s Israel Hayom edition.

A spokesperson for the newspaper said that the archive was being moved to a new digital system and its removal “had nothing to do” with the publication of the prime minister’s phone log.

— Raoul Wootliff