Refusing to face tough questions, Netanyahu blackballs media to public’s detriment |
Through his five meetings with President Donald Trump in the US over the past year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has deftly guided the bilateral relationship through substantive disagreements on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Israel.
He has also damaged Israel’s ability to achieve similar victories in the future by steadily undermining the ability of Israel’s traveling press corps to cover his taxpayer-funded travels.
No matter where one stands on Netanyahu — and the conversation around Israel’s longest-serving leader is nothing if not polarizing — the dwindling press access at his direction should dismay and worry those who care about Israel’s future.
The prime minister’s overseas trips are of utmost importance for the future and security of Israel. Netanyahu’s five flights to the US this year enabled him to cement a close and extremely productive relationship with the world’s most powerful man.
As the prime minister put it on Monday, the most recent trip “contributed to strengthening the dual relationship — both between Israel and the United States, and, of course, the personal relationship between us.”
Israel’s public and its supporters around the world have a right to know what is happening on these trips, and not just from the mouths of government spokespeople liable to spin the narrative in the prime minister’s favor.
Netanyahu’s new official plane Wing of Zion, which cost the public over $200 million to purchase and outfit, and which costs taxpayers over $200,000 each time it makes a transatlantic flight, has a dedicated press section in the back for journalists covering official trips to ride along. As with the American Air Force One, the press delegation is meant to join these trips to let the voting public know how their elected representatives spend their time when traipsing abroad on the public’s dime.
Unfortunately, Netanyahu has decided not to bring the traveling press corps on Wing of Zion on the last two trips to the US, including the recent visit to Mar-a-Lago. Instead of receiving images and details of the trip from reporters with access, the Israeli public is instead........