Tel-Chai Nation: Israeli police performed illegitimate actions in pursuing Netanyahu

A new report first revealed on Channel 12 news found that police, going out of their way to "get the dirt" on Netanyahu, no matter how petty the accusations, used inappropriate tactics to press people to "help" them:

A Friday report on Israel’s Channel 12, which revealed undue pressure was exerted on a key figure in one of the corruption cases against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has raised serious questions about the conduct of Israel’s police. The Israel Bar Association chief has asked the attorney general to open an investigation into the possible abuse.

Channel 12 reports that the Israeli police department’s Lahav 433, also known as “Israel’s FBI,” tried to “break” Elovitch in order to get him to turn state witness. They pressured his son and daughter to help.

Elovitch, owner of telecommunications giant Bezeq, is involved in Case 4000, considered the most serious of the corruption cases against Netanyahu. The prime minister is accused of driving through a merger for Elovitch in return for favorable coverage on the Walla! web portal.

According to the report, the police used Shaul Elovitch’s son, Or Elovitch, to try and convince him to drop his lawyer, Jack Chen, who they believed was standing between them and convincing Elovitch to flip against the prime minister.

On Sunday, the daily newspaper Ma’ariv quoted attorney Rami Tamam, a former investigator for Lahav 433, who said on Israel radio that while “the practice is legal and certainly was approved, it’s not legitimate.”

“Police officers should not pass an opinion on the lawyer and say whether he is good or bad. There is a lot of legitimate trickery in the way of exploring the truth, but not everything is legitimate,” Tamam said.

Israeli Justice Minister Amir Ohana of the Likud party also weighed in, writing in a Facebook post, “What you saw was the use of Elovitch’s son, who was being detained for the first time in his life, to pressure his father to replace a lawyer who seemingly wasn’t to the liking of law enforcement authorities, while eavesdropping on a conversation between the detained father and his son and recording it in the designated lawyer consultation room.”

What this proves is that the police system, as much as the justice system, is in dire need of an overhaul. And the police owe some serious apologies for taking horrific steps in order to blackmail somebody into assisting them over a politically motivated issue.

Labels: communications, Israel, Knesset, Moonbattery, political corruption

Matti Friedman
[former Associated Press reporter] wrote:

“Hamas’s strategy is to provoke a response
from Israel by attacking from behind the
cover of Palestinian civilians, thus drawing
Israeli strikes that kill those civilians,
and then to have the casualties filmed by
one of the world’s largest press contingents,
with the understanding that the resulting
outrage abroad will blunt Israel’s response.

This is a ruthless strategy, and an effective one.

It is predicated on the cooperation of journalists.
One of the reasons it works is because of the reflex I mentioned.

If you report that Hamas has a strategy based
on co-opting the media, this raises several
difficult questions, like:

What exactly is the relationship between the media and Hamas?

And has this relationship corrupted the media?”

SOURCE 1:
What the Media Gets Wrong about Israel
by Matti Friedman, 2014/11/30
www.TheAtlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262

SOURCE 2: Unfreedom of the Press
(chapter 6, pages 159-160) by Mark R. Levin,
published by Threshold Editions, year 2019, NYC,
ISBN 9781476773094 * ISBN 1476773092

Posted by Mr. Cohen | 9/09/2019 11:04:00 AM

Mark R. Levin
(a lawyer and best-selling author) said:

“…Hamas [the Islamic terrorist organization
that rules Gaza] also created kite bombs,
painted with swastikas, that it [they] launched
in Israel’s direction, when the winds were favorable.”

“Some 60 Gazans, the overwhelming majority
of whom were known Hamas terrorists,
lost their lives because Hamas turned
them into a collective suicide bomb.”

SOURCE: Unfreedom of the Press
(chapter 6, page 160) by Mark R. Levin,
published by Threshold Editions, year 2019, NYC,
ISBN 9781476773094 * ISBN 1476773092

===================================

Mark R. Levin
(a lawyer and best-selling author) said:

The examples of the [New York] Times’
and mass media’s hostility toward the Jewish State
is not even a matter of indifference, as it was
during the plight of European Jews in the 1930s
and 1940s, which was horrifying.

Instead, there is frequently open and affirmative
hostility toward the Jewish State, despite the fact
that the small country, a democracy and an ally,
faces daily threats of extermination from terrorists
groups and surrounding terrorist states, including,
if not especially, nuclear-weapons-obsessed Iran.

After examining more than a year’s worth of recent
coverage by the [New York] Times,
Gilead Ini of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East
Reporting in America [CAMERA] concluded that
the [New York] Times:

“consistently flouts the rules of ethical journalism.
And it does so as part of a campaign to protect anti-Israel
activists and steer public opinion against the Jewish State.”

SOURCE: The ‘Times’ and Israel:
A Review of 2018 by Gilead Ini, February 2019
www.CommentaryMagazine.com/articles/the-times-and-israel-a-review-of-2018/

SOURCE: Unfreedom of the Press
(chapter 6, page 163) by Mark R. Levin,
published by Threshold Editions, year 2019, NYC,
ISBN 9781476773094 * ISBN 1476773092

Posted by Mr. Cohen | 9/09/2019 11:09:00 AM

Mark R. Levin
(a lawyer and best-selling author) said:

“How is it possible that such colossal media failures of integrity, morality, and professional canons in the face of the mass extermination of Jews and Ukrainians do not permanently cripple the reputation and standing of the New York Times and the other press organizations, or at least force serious circumspection within, and reformation of the media industry?

And what of the weak excuses and feeble explanations offered decades later, as if they are atonement enough for the abhorrent consequences of the media’s role in the cover-up of the genocidal murder of millions?”

SOURCE: Unfreedom of the Press
(chapter 6, page 172) by Mark R. Levin,
published by Threshold Editions, year 2019, NYC,
ISBN 9781476773094 * ISBN 1476773092

===================================

Caroline Glick said:

Given the progressive, activist media’s effective control over the public discourse in the U.S., today it acts not as the guarantor of freedom of expression, but as the most powerful bar to freedom of expression in America.

By determining what is “racist” and what is not racist, what is “politically correct” and what is unacceptable politically and culturally, the media do not serve as a vehicle for informing the public about the issues of the day and the state of the country and the world. Rather, they serve as indoctrination nodes, instructing the public what they can say and what they cannot say; what they can think, and what they cannot think; who can be accepted as legitimate and who must be ostracized and shamed as illegitimate.

SOURCE: The New York Times’ 120 year war
against the Jews by Caroline Glick, 06/05/2019
http://carolineglick.com/the-new-york-times-120-year-war-against-the-jews/

PS: Israel could defend itself against the relentlessly-hostile news-media by denying work permits to journalists who have a history of anti-Israel bias. Even better, anti-Israel journalists could be denied the ability to enter Israel. Even better, only journalists who are proven to be pro-Israel should be granted the ability to enter Israel.