Sheldon Adelson Paper Rips ‘Feeble’ Netanyahu As Rift Widens
Image by getty images
The front-page headline of Israel Hayom, the paper owned by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, strongly criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday morning over his handling of the Temple Mount crisis, dubbing the matter “Netanyahu’s demonstration of helplessness.”
The subheading termed Israel’s response to events on the Temple Mount as “feeble and frightened.”
Up until now, the newspaper has ostentatiously and unwaveringly supported the prime minister. When Netanyahu is criticized, from either side of the political spectrum, Israel Hayom tends to place the premier’s position in the main headline and include commentaries that defend him.
However, the accompanying analysis in Wednesday’s paper by political reporter Mati Tuchfeld, who has defended the prime minister in the past, changes tack.
“Netanyahu is not the first prime minister to lead a line of Israeli helplessness in the face of the powerful Islamic movements that control the Jews’ holy place with a strong hand,” Tuchfeld wrote. “But unlike previous prime ministers, the measure that Netanyahu led in the cabinet the day before yesterday is one that is directly aimed against his political base.”
Adelson, the owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino and the largest donor to U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign, has historically been supportive of Netanyahu.
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.
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
