Netanyahu accuses prosecutor of lying, obscuring information in stormy court hearing

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in court on Monday for the fifth day of his cross-examination in Case 4000, one of the three cases against him, the day after submitting a request for a pardon to President Isaac Herzog.

The premier is on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in Case 4000, also known as the Bezeq-Walla case, which focuses on allegations that Netanyahu authorized regulatory decisions that financially benefited Bezeq telecommunications giant shareholder Shaul Elovitch by hundreds of millions of shekels.

In return, Netanyahu allegedly received favorable media coverage from the Walla news site, also owned by Elovitch.

Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing and says all three cases were fabricated by the police and state prosecution in an attempted political coup. His pardon request Sunday featured no admission of guilt or contrition, but rather argued that it was in Israel’s national interest for him to be pardoned, so he could focus fully on running the country.

Monday’s hearing began with the premier’s attorney, Amit Hadad, asking the Jerusalem District Court to cancel the hearing scheduled for Tuesday due to what he said was a “political-security” item on his schedule. If the request were to be granted, Hadad said, Netanyahu would be willing to extend Wednesday’s hearing by an hour to partially make up the lost time.

The court accepted the request, meaning that the premier would only testify twice this week, as he has done every week since the court upped his hearings to three times a week in October.

A group of protesters was waiting for Netanyahu as he arrived at the Tel Aviv District Court, some of them wearing orange prison-style jumpsuits.

Two protesters, one in an orange jumpsuit and a mask of Netanyahu’s face and the other in a suit and a mask of Herzog’s face, mocked the premier’s request for a pardon as others stood around them, pointing signs reading “to jail” at them.

As the hearing got underway, prosecutor Yehudit Tirosh of the State Attorney’s office accused Netanyahu 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.

Tirosh pointed out that despite Netanyahu having stated on numerous occasions that Walla was hostile to him and that he only interviewed with the website during elections, he did grant at least one interview to the outlet outside of an election period, and then 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],” Tirosh said.

She put it to Netanyahu that, “this interview is very interesting to you, you’re interviewed and share specifically this interview with Walla and not television interviews done in parallel.”

She presented the court with evidence of Netanyahu sharing Walla articles about or with him on his Facebook page over the years, charging that “this contradicts your categorical statement that there was no interest in appearing on the Walla website and that you were only interviewed during an election period.”

The premier, in response, lashed out at Tirosh and accused her of deviating from accepted practice in filing the prosecution’s indictment, and of acting dishonestly.

“You accuse me of making a false statement. A lie. You should be ashamed,” Netanyahu lambasted the prosecutor. “You’ve lied throughout this entire case.”

He accused Tirosh of turning he issue into “the core of the accusation” against him without legal approval, of obscuring legal opinions from the Justice Ministry and the State Comptroller, and of having “hidden the correspondence of other politicians with Walla.”

“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,” Netanyahu told the court, calling the news outlet a “hostile site.”

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.

After a short break, Tirosh returned to questioning Netanyahu about his relationship with Elovitch, at which point the premier launched into a tirade against Israel’s legal system, which he said was wasting his time.

“We’re all amazed by your absurd interrogations; you investigated Bugs Bunny,” the premier said, referring to allegations that the premier’s wife, Sara, had requested a giant Bugs Bunny toy for their son, Yair, from Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan in 1996.

“After ten years, I am allowed to express my frustration and anger,” he said, justifying his outburst. “You are wasting the time of the court, the prime minister of Israel, and the people of Israel with this nonsense.”

Netanyahu, in the six years since he was indicted, has declared his innocence time and again and decried the trial as a politically motivated witch hunt.

On Sunday, he took a step that he had previously insisted he would not pursue and submitted a formal pardon request to Herzog, which, if granted, would bring his lengthy trial to an end years earlier than it is currently expected to finish.

The premier did not admit guilt in the request, and in a video statement, continued to contest the charges against him and the legitimacy of the process by which he was indicted. He also did not indicate any readiness to step down as prime minister, arguing that, if he were pardoned, he would be free to more effectively advance Israel’s interests.

He argued that the trial was tearing Israel apart and that its immediate conclusion “would greatly help lower the flames and promote broad reconciliation.”

Herzog said he would evaluate the request based on expert opinion from the Justice Ministry and other legal officials in a process that is expected to take several weeks.