Israel Matzav

Israel's biggest enemies: NY Times and HaAretz

JPost editor in chief Steve Linde told an audience at the Women's Zionist Conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday that Israel's two biggest enemies are the New York Times and Haaretz.

Steve Linde, addressing a conference in Tel Aviv of the Women's International Zionist Organization, said Wednesday that Netanyahu made the remark to him about the newspapers at a private meeting "a couple of weeks ago" at the prime minister’s office in Tel Aviv.

“He said, ‘You know, Steve, we have two main enemies,’ ” Linde said, according to a recording of the WIZO speech provided to JTA. “And I thought he was going to talk about, you know, Iran, maybe Hamas. He said, ‘It’s The New York Times and Haaretz.’ He said, ‘They set the agenda for an anti-Israel campaign all over the world. Journalists read them every morning and base their news stories … on what they read in The New York Times and Haaretz.’ ”

Linde said he and other participants at the meeting asked Netanyahu whether he really thought that the media had that strong a role in shaping world opinion on Israel, and the prime minister replied, “Absolutely.”

The Prime Minister’s Office could not be reached immediately for comment.

I believe Netanyahu said that, and I believe he's largely correct (okay, Iran and Hamas and Hezbullah and the 'Palestinian Authority' do the dirty work, among others). It's one of the reasons blogs like this one exist - to create a source for people to find the truth.

The real question here is whether Netanyahu was fooled into thinking that Linde could keep a secret, or whether he said that knowing that Linde would shoot off his mouth and hoping that it would get out to the public. I suspect we won't get an answer to that question.

UPDATE 4:41 PM

Army Radio reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu has denied saying what Linde attributed to him (link in Hebrew).

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Haaretz, New York Times, Steve Linde

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:30 AM