Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dropped out of sight for most of a day this week, a mysterious absence that has set off feverish speculation about what the Israeli leader was up to — and accusations he lied to cover up a clandestine trip to Moscow.
After initially issuing a vague statement about visiting a top-secret Mossad installation inside Israel, Netanyahu kept silent on Thursday as reports emerged that he flew to Moscow aboard a private jet for urgent talks on Iran.
According to various accounts, the Israeli prime minister was either pushing the Russians to halt arms sales to Iran, or warning of an impending strike against Iranian nuclear facilities or discussing the recent disappearance of a Russian-crewed freighter.
A shifting story line from Netanyahu’s office and then silence have enraged the local media, which branded the prime minister a liar and painted his office as a chaotic scene of rivalries and disarray.
“Anarchy, turf wars and lies,” screamed a headline on Thursday in the Haaretz daily.
“Look what happened to the prime minister on his way to Russia: His credibility, which was never sky high, took a hard blow,” wrote the Maariv daily in a front-page column.
In security-obsessed Israel, keeping sensitive matters under wraps on the grounds of national security has long been accepted by the media, which abide by military censorship rules that force them to sit on security-related news.
But a false cover story? Israeli columnists were outraged.
The affair erupted on Monday when reporters began inquiring about Netanyahu’s whereabouts. His schedule had been cleared, there were no public appearances for the latter part of the day and even the prime minister’s media adviser, Nir Hefetz, had to admit he did not know where Netanyahu was.
Late in the evening, Netanyahu’s office issued a terse statement from his military secretary saying he was visiting “a security facility in the country.”
Then rumors began to trickle out that Netanyahu was on a top-secret overseas mission.
First to emerge were reports of a visit to an undisclosed Arab country that does not have diplomatic ties with Israel, carried in the Palestinian daily Al-Manar and on Web sites throughout the Arab world.
But by Wednesday, Israel’s largest daily, Yediot Ahronot, was reporting that Netanyahu had flown secretly to Moscow to voice concern over the possible sale of Russian anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Other Israeli newspapers published similar accounts, saying Netanyahu had made the 15-hour trip on a private plane.
People familiar with Netanyahu’s movements said the plane belonged to businessman Yossi Maiman’s Merhav Group, an Israeli conglomerate with energy and media interests. Netanyahu leased the plane — instead of using a government aircraft — to help ensure secrecy, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Merhav had no comment.
Israel considers Iran its greatest threat, citing Tehran’s support for Arab militants, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threatening language about the Jewish state and Iran’s nuclear program. Israel, like the US and much of the international community, believes Iran’s program is aimed at developing a nuclear bomb. Iran denies this.
Russia, which wields veto power in the UN Security Council and has close ties with Iran, could play a crucial role in the debate later this month over imposing additional sanctions on Iran.
The Haaretz daily said Netanyahu discussed Russian arms deals with Iran and Syria, and that Israel presented evidence that Russian arms were making their way to Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. In another report, the paper said the talks were also focused on sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles that Russia has agreed to sell to Iran. The delivery of the S-300 missiles would make it much more difficult for Israel to carry out an attack on Iran.
The reported visit follows the hijacking last month of a freighter that was later intercepted by Russia off Cape Verde, thousands of kilometers from the Algerian port where it was supposed to have docked. A Russian maritime expert and the EU’s top anti-piracy official have suggested the Arctic Sea may have been carrying missiles bound for Iran. Israeli media have speculated the Mossad tipped off the Russians to the illicit cargo.
As the rumors swirled of clandestine talks, Russian officials remained silent.
“We have seen these reports in various media, and you know that not all the details add up, but there is nothing more I can tell you,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko was quoted as saying on Thursday.
The Russian daily Kommersant, citing a “highly placed source in the Kremlin,” confirmed the visit and speculated the talks had been on an extremely urgent matter, “like Israel updating Russia on its intention to attack Iran.”
The Israeli reports said Netanyahu was joined by his military secretary, Major General Meir Kalifi, and national security adviser Uzi Arad.
Arad, a former Mossad spymaster, favors a tough line against Tehran and would almost certainly be involved in any preparations to attack Iran. Israel has strongly hinted it is prepared to attack the country’s nuclear sites if international sanctions fail to persuade Tehran to curb its atomic program.
According to the Israeli reports, the rest of Netanyahu’s inner circle was not told of the trip, and the leaks appeared to have been from disgruntled aides angry they were left out of the loop.
Arad, widely considered the prime minister’s closest adviser, is a controversial figure. He has clashed with other officials and is reportedly so obsessed with security that he has demanded other top advisers be subjected to lie detector tests.
Late on Wednesday, Netanyahu’s office began to back away from its original story, issuing a statement saying the report about visiting a secret military installation came from Kalifi and was a well-intentioned “independent initiative.”
In an odd twist, it noted that Arad “had no part in this.”
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
A team of doctors and vets in Pakistan has developed a novel treatment for a pair of elephants with tuberculosis (TB) that involves feeding them at least 400 pills a day. The jumbo effort at the Karachi Safari Park involves administering the tablets — the same as those used to treat TB in humans — hidden inside food ranging from apples and bananas, to Pakistani sweets. The amount of medication is adjusted to account for the weight of the 4,000kg elephants. However, it has taken Madhubala and Malika several weeks to settle into the treatment after spitting out the first few doses they
RSS