ToI Community update — Editor’s note: Bibi, business and Israeli media * Israel Unlocked on Yom HaShoah and Israeli memory * Times Will Tell Podcast: Holocaust humor

[The Times of Israel]( Dear ToI Community members and Daily Edition readers, We’re sending this edition of our weekly Community update to Daily Edition readers as well, since what I’ve written below goes to the heart of what we do at The Times of Israel, and the environment in which we work. We are not perfect. We make mistakes. We have our biases. But our editorial operation and our coverage are independent. We present and prioritize material based on our journalistic judgment of its importance, not shaped or influenced by the business interests of our ownership, relationships with politicians, or any other outside interests. That independent stance is central to our work. (That’s also why I hope those of you who haven’t yet done so will join the ToI Community, and help us to keep doing what we do while maintaining a site whose content is free and available to all. [Join up here]( — A truly dismal saga is playing out in Jerusalem District Court. Not just as regards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but also relating to parts of Israel’s media landscape. And although the cases before the court relate to the events of several years ago, the concerns they highlight about Israeli media independence, in the face of a prime minister who has worked strategically for years to bend media to his will, are all too current. In the first of the three cases that this week entered the evidentiary stage, Netanyahu is battling allegations that for several years he exercised what amounted to editorial control over what was Israel’s second-largest news website, Walla, in an illicit quid pro quo deal with its owners that, one way or another, has harmed pretty much every Israeli. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives for the first session of the evidentiary stage of his trial at Jerusalem District Court on April 5, 2021. He left the hearing after the lead prosecutor’s opening statement, before the start of witness testimony, at his own request and with the judges’ permission. (Oren Ben Hakoon/POOL) The arrangement, over which Netanyahu has been charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in the so-called Case 4000, allegedly worked like this: He and his aides secured favorable Walla coverage of his own activities and negative coverage of his rivals, chose and vetoed staff, and had individual articles changed, removed, and/or highlighted on the site to meet his needs. (In one example cited by the state in the interim [charge sheet](, Netanyahu demanded that Walla feature, “prominently and for many hours, a [video]( that you released on election day in 2015 in which you warned that ‘the Arabs [were] coming to the polls in droves’ and called upon right-wing voters to vote for your party.”) In return, Netanyahu used his power and authority as prime minister and communications minister to advance decisions bringing colossal financial benefit to Shaul and Iris Elovich, at the time the controlling shareholders of both Walla and Israel’s telecom giant Bezeq. Netanyahu allegedly enabled a [merger]( between Bezeq and the Yes satellite TV company worth hundreds of millions of shekels to the Eloviches. Of vast, nationwide significance, he also allegedly intervened to [delay]( for years the vital, urgent overhaul of Israel’s internet infrastructure — stalling the deployment of high-speed fiber optic cables that would have given millions of Israelis cheaper and faster internet, meaning the Start-Up Nation gradually became a rather Slowed-Down Nation — in order to help preserve Bezeq’s monopoly in the field. Netanyahu bitterly denies these and all the other allegations against him, repeatedly claiming that the charges are fabricated, and that Israel’s prosecutors and cops are conspiring with the media and his political rivals to oust him via the courts since they can’t defeat him at the ballot box. Specifically, in this most serious of the cases for which he is on trial, he insists that all the decisions he made that related to the Eloviches, Bezeq, Yes, et al, were aboveboard, were approved by the relevant civil servants, and had no connection to the coverage he received from the website the Eloviches also happened to own, much of which he insists was anything but favorable. Israeli businessman Shaul Elovitch and his wife Iris at the District Court in Jerusalem, April 6, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel / Flash90) Today is only the third day of the evidentiary stage of the trial, which is expected to last years, with over 300 witnesses potentially to be called. The presumption of innocence remains firmly with Netanyahu. But the testimony of the first prosecution witness in Case 4000, Walla’s former CEO Ilan Yeshua, has already begun to illustrate some grim realities as regards integrity, or the lack thereof, in certain quarters of Israeli media. The way [Yeshua]( has been [telling it]( to the judges, the editorial operation of a purportedly independent news website, the second most important source of online news for the Israeli public, was controlled by the prime minister and skewed relentlessly to his benefit, with the knowledge and complicity of some senior members of the editorial staff. Other staff members left Walla rather than distort coverage; still others resorted to acts of insubordination. This all went on from before the January 2013 elections until it was exposed in a Haaretz article [(Hebrew link)]( in October 2015. Only then would Walla readers have learned that they had been consuming editorial content presented and prioritized not according to editors’ professional judgment of what constituted news, what exactly had happened in the news, and how much it mattered, but rather material routinely tailored to the interests and specific demands of the prime minister. Ilan Yeshua, former CEO of Walla news website, arrives for his third day of testimony in the case against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Jerusalem District Court, April 7, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) Case 2000, later on in the trial, is set to plunge us into a second alleged Netanyahu-media illicit quid pro quo. This concerns a negotiated but never-implemented deal under which Arnon Moses, the publisher of Yedioth Ahronoth, owner of Israel’s biggest news website, allegedly agreed with Netanyahu to remake Yedioth’s editorial line in the prime minister’s favor, in exchange for Netanyahu hobbling the competing Israel Hayom free newspaper, a near-overt mouthpiece for the prime minister’s interests, that has deeply harmed Yedioth’s business. The Walla scandal has led to a changing of the guard at that website, which is no longer owned by the Eloviches, who are also charged with bribery in the case. At Yedioth, years after the allegations came to light, eventually making it onto the Netanyahu charge sheet, Mozes, himself [charged]( with bribery, remains in situ as majority owner and publisher. Arnon (Noni) Mozes arrives for a court hearing at Jerusalem District Court on April 5, 2021 (Oren Ben Hakoon/POOL) Cases 2000 and 4000, two of the three corruption cases Netanyahu is fighting, revolve around his alleged corralling of Israeli media to try to boost his popularity and help him to retain power. The third, Case 1000, is largely focused on alleged illicit gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars Netanyahu and wife Sara received from (and favors done for) billionaire Israeli-American businessman and Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan. This case too, though, also has media repercussions in that Milchan was a part-owner of Channel 10 TV, a major TV station (since relaunched as Channel 13). As the prime minister’s trial continues, we are set to hear further troubling revelations not only as regards Netanyahu’s alleged illegal machinations to dominate the Israeli media landscape via the abuse of his ministerial powers and authority, but as regards the complicity of senior figures in Israeli journalism in those efforts. But if the temptation is to believe that Israel’s state prosecutors are now belatedly exposing alleged illicit arrangements hatched many years ago between businesspeople who own media outlets and a politician who allegedly sought to exploit that nexus, and facilitated by journalists who were content or compelled to go along with it, the truth is that this is not all old and disputed history. The current iterations are a little different, but it’s still happening, right now. Jacob Bardugo speaks the conference of the ‘Makor Rishon’ newspaper, December 8, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) At Army Radio, largely staffed by and bearing the brand of the Israel Defense Forces — an institution required to steer clear of partisan politics — a so-titled “political analyst” named Jacob Bardugo, allegedly [installed]( in a deal engineered by Netanyahu, co-hosts a drivetime weekday early evening show in which he relentlessly shills for the prime minister. Disturbingly, Bardugo also relentlessly castigates the attorney general who had the gall to indict Netanyahu [(Hebrew link)]( bashes everyone up to and including the president [(Hebrew link)](Twitter) who he considers harmful or antithetical to the prime minister’s interests, and sometimes even challenges the radio station’s own reporters when he deems their coverage unsatisfactory. He and his hapless co-hosts also conduct numerous lengthy and obsequious interviews with Netanyahu in the run-up to each of our now frequent elections — giving considerably more airtime to the prime minister than his rivals who, if they are prepared to brave Bardugo’s often contemptuous approach, are interrogated and rudely interrupted. In contrast to Walla, privately owned and surreptitiously tailoring its coverage to suit Netanyahu, this is distortion in plain sight at an Israeli taxpayer-funded, IDF-branded radio station. Everybody who works at the station knows it. Everybody who runs the station knows it. On it goes, day after day, week after week, election cycle after election cycle. Army Radio, every listener knows about. But what of the other outlets where, as was allegedly the case at Walla, the skewing is a little more subtle and the nexus between the interests of media-owning businesspeople and powerful Israeli politicians plays a covert role? 🤝 NOW MORE THAN EVER: Join the ToI Community We are hugely appreciative that so many of you have joined the Community, and are thus helping finance the work of our reporters and editors. If you haven’t yet joined the ToI Community, [please do so now!]( All Times of Israel content remains open to all readers. But if that content matters to you, do please support us — for as little as $6 a month. 🖥 Israel Unlocked: Yom HaShoah, Memory and Memorial Hundreds of Community members joined in yesterday to enjoy the latest installment of our Israel Unlocked virtual tour series, exclusive to the ToI Community. As we head into the season of remembrance beginning with Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), we journeyed to sites in Israel that highlight our past and give voice to those who helped build our future. Our expert guide, Amy Ben-Dov, brought us on a special multimedia experience to explore inspiring sites, including the Knesset Menorah, Scrolls of Fire Memorial, Latrun, Davidka Memorial, Yad Vashem, Ammunition Hill, and Mount Herzl. Photo credit: Scrolls of Fire Memorial (SirKiss), Mount Herzl (Ron Almog/Geagea), Latrun (Bukvoed) Did you miss yesterday’s session? No problem! A replay is available now on our Community page (requires sign-in to your Community account): [Watch replay on Community page]( 🎧 Times Will Tell podcast preview: Too soon? An Israeli scholar explains why Holocaust humor is here to stay This week, in honor of Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, we speak with Dr. Liat Steir-Livny, who is a senior lecturer in Holocaust, film and culture studies at Sapir Academic College and the Open University. Steir-Livny, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, is the author of five books on the Holocaust in contemporary popular culture, including “Is it O.K to Laugh about it? “(Vallentine Mitchell, 2017), which analyzes Holocaust humor, satire and parody in Israeli culture. We speak about the rampant use of Holocaust humor that has proliferated over the past 20 years in Israel, why it is flourishing and what it symbolizes. Whereas Israelis have accepted Holocaust humor as an integral part of the parlance, Steir-Livny has found that abroad it is still clearly “verboten” and like “poking the bear.” We also discuss the increasing trend of the Zikaron Basalon or Remembrance in the Living Room grassroots gatherings, which Steir-Livny credits with “saving” Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel. As always, your ToI Community membership gives you early access to Times Will Tell: [Listen to Times Will Tell]( And be sure to subscribe to Times Will Tell on [Apple Podcasts]( [Google Podcasts]( [Spotify](, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 🙋 Have something to share? We’d love to hear it! Join the discussion on the [ToI Community Facebook group](. Keep tabs on new content and events on our [Community Page](. And don’t hesitate to [write to us](mailto: community@timesofisrael.com) with any suggestions, issues or questions. Be well, David Horovitz Founding Editor, The Times of Israel You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to The Times of Israel's Daily Edition and/or you are a member of [The Times of Israel Community](. If you would like to stop receiving these emails, please click below to unsubscribe. [Unsubscribe]( Email not displaying correctly? [View it in your browser](