Bibi: I Speak To Sheldon Adelson On Average 0.75 Times A Week

Sheldon Adelson

By Nathan Guttman August 31, 2017

Responding to criticism that he had maintained an open line with the heads of Israel’s largest daily newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he talked to owner Sheldon Adelson “.75 times a week.”

Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate and Republican mega-donor, also owns Israel Hayom, a daily newspaper usually viewed as supportive of Netanyahu.

In a Facebook post Netanyahu said he has “nothing to hide” regarding his talks with Adelson and with the paper’s former chief editor Amos Regev. “Adelson has been a close friend of mine for 30 years and I’m glad to speak to him from time to time,” Netanyahu wrote. “Between the years 2012-2015 I had on average 0.75 calls a week with him.”

That odd arithmetic adds up to about 40 calls a year.

In his Facebook post Netanyahu claimed it is not uncommon for politicians to speak to reporters, editors and publishers and that, “once in a while, after I finish my day’s work late at night, I also talk to members of the press.”

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.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO