The publisher of Israel’s best-selling newspaper was called in for further police questioning on Monday amid an ongoing investigation into suspicions that he negotiated a behind-the-scenes deal with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give the premier more favorable coverage in exchange for legislation that would damage a competing daily.
New leaks from conversations between Benjamin Netanyahu and Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes reveal the prime minister discussing which journalists are unacceptably hostile to him, and the newspaper mogul pondering how to marginalize them, in the latest dramatic developments in a corruption investigation that threatens Netanyahu’s hold on power.
It was 2010. Many journalists and editors at the Yedioth Ahronoth group struggled to understand what was happening around them – why the defense minister at the time, Ehud Barak, was suffering belligerent headlines every day in the newspaper and its Ynet website.