Netanyahu trial day 35: Last day of defense questioning opens in Tel Aviv

Separately, following a decision recently enforced by the court’s guard to not allow questions towards the prime minister while he is in the room before the judges enter, after the break, all journalists were forbidden from reentry until the hearing began anew. This came following a volley of questions issued towards the prime minister earlier that morning. Out of the group of journalists, only a few shouted questions, but all were forbidden from entry.

When Netanyahu insisted that the coverage was pointedly negative, Kleinman responded that based on the articles, they were mixed, and though there was criticism towards him as a public official, it did not lean heavily in one direction or the other. This, supposedly, is the bedrock of the drive behind the openness to a discussion with Mozes on the matter of shifting the coverage.

After receiving four sealed envelopes in the courtroom, Netanyahu asked for a break. This was right around the time of the confirmed Israeli strikes on Yemen's Sanaa international airport. The strikes were in response to several Houthi ballistic missile attacks fired against Israel over the last week.

Addressing the proposed legislation, Netanyahu said he couldn’t recall exactly when he first became aware of it. 

Netanyahu said he had nothing to do with the public relations campaigns against the Israel Hayom law. Kleinman presented a strategic planning document relating to the law, which has Netanyahu’s handwriting on it. 

In one area, it reads, “Sheldon [Adelson, the late owner of Israel Hayom] - to the cover]”. Kleinman then presented copies of the printed paper and its supplements in the coming days, which indeed had Adelson on the cover. 

Netanyahu insisted that he had no recollection of discussing these details with Adelson in phone calls he had with him around that time.

Netanyahu said that he wasn’t shy about his attempts to halt the legislation. When it passed its first reading in the Knesset in 2014, Netanyahu said, “I used a word then that was truly appropriate at the time, ‘Shame!’”

Kleinman noted, citing police interrogation transcripts, that he told interrogators that he had expressed as much to Adelson himself.

The 35th testimony day in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal trial hearings began at the Tel Aviv District Court on Wednesday. 

Due to the 40 Signatures vote scheduled in the Knesset today, the hearing will end early. Today wraps up the defense’s questioning of the prime minister, which will conclude the direct-examination portion of the trial. It takes place on the 600th day since October 7, as 58 hostages are still being held in captivity by Hamas in Gaza. 

Sharon Kleinman, the representative for Yediot Aharonot owner Arnon “Noni” Mozes, will query the prime minister on behalf of her client. The relationship between Mozes and Netanyahu is the heart of Case 2000, one of the three cases levied against the prime minister. Kleinman also said on Tuesday that she wouldn’t need long to wrap up her questioning today.

Allegedly, Mozes offered a bribe to Netanyahu by proposing positive coverage of him and his family in the prominent daily and negative coverage of political opponents, in exchange for the advancement of legislation that would force restrictions on Yediot’s rival daily tabloid, Israel Hayom. The charges are based on recordings of conversations between the two, recorded by Netanyahu staffer-turned-state’s-witness Ari Harow. Netanyahu was charged with fraud and breach of trust, while Mozes was charged with attempted bribery.