Netanyahu, now opposition leader in
Like the previous aide-turned-state's witness,
“Netanyahu is hands-off, lets you do your work, he doesn’t get involved in the micro. Except when it has to do with things that really matter to him -- like media," Filber testified, with Netanyahu and members of his family a few feet away in the small courtroom. “In those cases I could get five to six calls a day.”
Netanyahu is charged in three separate cases. The first alleges that Netanyahu received gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy associates.
In the second case, Netanyahu is accused of orchestrating positive coverage in a major Israeli paper in exchange for promoting legislation that would have harmed the news outlet’s chief rival, a free pro-Netanyahu daily.
Israeli media has cast the third case as highly dependent on testimony from Filber, dubbed as “the witness without whom Case 4000 might not exist.”
An emotional Filber told the court Wednesday that it was clear to him that Netanyahu wanted him “not to eliminate competition (for
“Elovitch reached out to me and told me he has problems with the ministry, a consultancy that set wrong prices,” Filber said, describing that message as, "'Don’t stop competition, but see if you can moderate it.’”
Asked if what Netanyahu asked him would help Elovitch, Filber answered, “Yes," adding later that there were "50 shades of gray” in how the former premier communicated his request.
Pressed, Filber said he perceived Netanyahu’s instruction as an “action item” which he had to swiftly act on.
Filber's testimony echoed that of
“Netanyahu had the greatest control over the Walla website, including what the headline would be, where it would be on the home page,” Hefetz said. “I thought the Elovitches were doing a good job.”
Hefetz told the court last year that Netanyahu was a “control freak” when it came to his public image and spent “at least as much as his time on media as he spends on security matters.”
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