Did Sheldon Adelson Fire Newspaper Editor For Criticizing Netanyahu?

By Nathan Guttman April 30, 2017

Amos Regev, the founding editor of Sheldon Adelson’s Israel Hayom daily, was fired following growing friction between the publication and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office.

The free daily, which is owned by the Las Vegas Republican mega-donor and is known for its flattering coverage of Netanyahu, is Israel’s largest circulating newspaper.

According to press reports in Israel, Regev was let go from the helm of the paper after 10 years because he had allowed senior writers in the paper to criticize Netanyahu. In recent months the paper has also scaled down the coverage of Sara Netanyahu, the prime minister’s wife.

Regev was known for his close ties to Netanyahu. But his insistence on some independence may have done him in.

Regev will be replaced by Boaz Bismuth, who is currently the paper’s foreign news editor. During the recent U.S. presidential election, Bismuth, who is considered close to Adelson, landed several exclusive interviews with Donald Trump and was the first and only Israeli reporter to sit down for an Oval Office interview with President Trump after the elections.

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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