Netanyahu accuses Israeli media of ‘witch hunt’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused the country’s media of an “organized witch hunt” against his office, amid a spate of reports of alleged criminal activity by his staff, including attempted blackmail and tampering with sensitive data.
In a statement on Sunday, Netanyahu dismissed the reports as “fake news” and a “wild and unrestrained attack” designed to “to harm the country’s leadership… in the middle of war.”
Netanyahu’s comments followed a report by Israel’s national broadcaster Kan which claimed that one of prime minister’s top aides had blackmailed an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer to obtain access to sensitive documents.
According to Kan News, Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, used sensitive personal information about a senior officer within the Military Secretariat to pressure him to grant access to the minutes from meetings held early in the Gaza war, stored in the secretariat, with the intent to alter them. Braverman has since vehemently denied the allegation.
The alleged tampering of the minutes itself is the subject of another police investigation into the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. The case centers on classified discussions between Netanyahu and his former military secretary, Avi Gil, held since the latest Gaza war erupted in October 2023.
The third case, which has led to several arrests, including that of a former Netanyahu spokesperson, concerns a suspected leak by the Prime Minister’s Office of sensitive intelligence to foreign media outlets, which may have harmed national security.
According to daily newspaper Haaretz, the three cases and the suspicions against Netanyahu’s staff “ostensibly point to a pattern of attempted manipulation in order to create a narrative that serves the prime minister.”
At this stage, there is no evidence directly tying the prime minister to either of the three investigations, the publication said. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s legal team has sought to delay his testimony in the long-running corruption case against him.
According to Israeli media, lawyers have filed a request with the Jerusalem District Court to postpone Netanyahu’s appearance in court, which was scheduled for early December, by two and a half months, claiming that a series of recent security incidents made it “impossible” for him to prepare for the testimony.
The prime minister was charged with fraud, bribery, and breach of trust in three cases filed in 2019. The trial began in May 2020 but has suffered delays, first due to the Covid-19 pandemic and more recently because of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza.
Netanyahu has consistently denied any wrongdoing and has claimed that the indictments were part of a politically charged witch hunt aimed at removing him from office.
