Likud’s Miri Regev slams media coverage of Netanyahu graft cases

Culture Minister Miri Regev is one of the few top Likud officials publicly backing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday amid a storm of corruption allegations against the premier and his closest confidants.

“You’re shaming the prime minister,” Regev says from the Knesset podium in a question-and-answer session with fellow lawmakers.

Pointing to the explosion of cases around the prime minister, she sarcastically reports to lawmakers about “Case 7000” — a reference to the police designations for the other cases involving Netanyahu or his close associates, cases 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000.

“I have to update you. They just reported on Case 7000, serious allegations against the kindergarten teacher Shoshana, who allegedly gave [a 5-year-old] Netanyahu an extra cookie at his kindergarten’s end-of-year party. Police are now looking into suspicions that this is why she is still the kindergarten’s teacher today,” Regev mocks. “Tomorrow, of course, there will be a big photo of Netanyahu and the cookie on the front pages of the newspapers.”

She rails against the media, charging, “This is how you work. Every quarter-rumor, every half-leak turns instantly into the top story and a public indictment.”

But, she assures, “you have one problem: the public isn’t buying it.”