Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears in court this morning for testimony on Case 1000, only 3 hours after returning from US.
Just three hours after returning to Israel from an official visit to Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared at the Tel Aviv District Court on Wednesday morning to resume his testimony in the ongoing proceedings related to Case 1000.
At the outset of the hearing, Netanyahu’s legal counsel, Advocate Amit Hadad, addressed the bench, stating: “The Prime Minister is extremely fatigued, having not slept through the night. It is in the court’s own interest that he should provide testimony while fully alert, rather than in a state of exhaustion.” Presiding Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman responded briefly: “Let us begin and see how matters proceed.”
During the hearing, Hadad questioned Netanyahu about his expectations in December 2016 regarding a potential investigation into his relationship with businessman Shaul Elovitch. Netanyahu replied: “I did not anticipate that an investigation would be initiated. I had requested the State Comptroller to conduct an examination—an initiative that originated with me. This examination was unrelated to any wrongdoing on my part.”
The defense also addressed allegations suggesting that Channel 14 supports the Prime Minister in return for regulatory advantages. Netanyahu firmly denied the claim, stating: “I know that is not true.” When asked why the channel expresses support for him, he explained: “They align ideologically with my policies. The same was true of the Elovitch family; however, they did not act on that support—not due to ideological disagreement, but because they were reluctant to confront the editorial team at Walla, which maintained a highly adversarial stance. Nonetheless, their ideological alignment was evident.”
The Prime Minister went on to criticize the conduct of law enforcement, asserting that, “There has been an overwhelming flood of leaks originating from the investigators, using material that was solely in the possession of the police. I doubt that such a volume of leaks exists anywhere else in the Western world. Thousands of such leaks have occurred over the years, accompanied by numerous complaints. These are not isolated incidents, but rather a continuous stream. There have been attempts to influence judges, witnesses, and even the Attorney General. Most disturbingly, these efforts appear to have aimed at skewing the outcome of elections. What we are witnessing is a politically motivated exploitation of the justice system, with the Attorney General’s complicity.”
In a further exchange, Hadad noted that defense attorneys did not have access to the investigative materials in January 2019, and asked: “Prime Minister, did you provide those materials to Channel 12 News, enabling them to allege a plan to sideline Naftali Bennett?”
Netanyahu denied the accusation, responding: “Certainly not. At that time, all the investigative materials were in the hands of the police and the State Attorney’s Office. These leaks served a political agenda. Naftali Bennett competes with me for right-wing votes. The narrative that I tortured him or devised a plan to eliminate him politically is absurd. I did not leak that information. It’s a distorted portrayal. There is clearly a large-scale campaign at play. The notion that Guy Peleg unearthed these documents from a building in Salah-a-Din is beyond belief.”
