Netanyahu under fire after call logs with newspaper editor exposed

Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s relationship with a newspaper editor and the US billionaire who owns the paper came under increased fire yesterday after a freedom of information request exposed the premier’s frequent calls with the two men.The call logs, provided by the prime minister to Raviv Drucker, a journalist with the Channel 10 TV news station who filed the information request, show that Netanyahu spoke with Amos Regev, the editor-in-chief of the Israel Hayom newspaper, 15 times within the 19 days leading up to Israel’s 2013 elections.According to the Channel 10 report, which aired Sunday night, Israel Hayom’s headlines reflected pro-Netanyahu positions in the days after the prime minister spoke with Regev. The newspaper has often been accused of trumpeting a pro-Netanyahu line; It’s free distribution model has undercut the advertising revenue of other Israeli media. Netanyahu also frequently spoke with Sheldon Adelson, the conservative US casino mogul who owns the paper and is a supporter of the prime minister. Critics of Netanyahu argue that it could amount to an illegal campaign contribution if the premier is shown to have influenced the headlines. “(Israel Hayom) is an entire project to promote Netanyahu, which on its way has caused unprecedented economic damage to real newspapers that are not based on a huge contributions with political goals,” Stav Shaffir of the centre-left Zionist Union party said in a statement yesterday.However, David Bitan of Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party said that conversations with editors are a regular part of any prime minister’s job. Amit Segal a prominent political journalist for Channel 2 TV mirrored Bitan’s comments. “I do not want to spoil the party, but I do not know any candidate for prime minister who spoke with me less than once a day in the two weeks before the elections,” Segal said on Twitter on Sunday, “Every candidate and every election.”On Thursday, following an extensive court battle, Netanyahu provided the number of phone conversations between 2012 and 2015 he had with Regev (234 times) and Adelson (117 times), but the dates of the calls were only later provided to Channel 10. “All the politicians in Israel speak to publishers, editors-in-chief and journalists,” Netanyahu said in Facebook post defending the conversations.