Published: 18 October 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Benjamin Netanyahu's former media adviser has turned state's witness against his ex-boss. His diary records how the then PM manipulated ministers and solidified his leadership.
Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu struggled to muster support in his cabinet for a historic 2009 speech recognising Palestinian statehood, the leaked diary of his spokesman-turned-state-witness has revealed.
Nir Hefetz, who served as Netanyahu’s media adviser from June 2009 to December 2010, has become a state witness, testifying against his former boss in December 2021. His testimony is considered key in substantiating Cases 2000 and 4000, in which Netanyahu is accused of offering regulatory favours to media tycoons in return for positive coverage.
Hefetz documented his interactions with Netanyahu in real time on small notes, which he typed into a computer document following his retirement. The “Hefetz diary” was used as evidence in Netanyahu’s ongoing trial, and was obtained by leading Israeli Channel 13 journalist Raviv Drucker.
Hefetz received a revised version of the speech from Netanyahu, who informed him that most changes were made by his wife Sara, whom Netanyahu said was 'his best adviser on texts'.
“This is one of the most incredible documents I’ve ever read,” Drucker wrote on his blog on October 16. “It’s not meant for the general public. It’s full of details, names, facts, matters that took place 12 and 13 years ago. But for those immersed in the details, it’s an amazing document featuring the triangle of policy, politics and the media.”
Upon taking office, Hefetz immediately began working on Netanyahu’s most famous policy speech, delivered on June 14, 2009, at Bar Ilan University. The speech was meant as a response to President Barack Obama’s famous “Cairo Speech” delivered ten days earlier.
“I told him: the most important thing for me is that, following the speech, the people of Israel tell themselves: ‘We have a leader’,” Hefetz wrote in his diary on June 5.
