Likud: Why Won’t Media Investigate Livni’s ‘Dirt Digging’ on Netanyahu?

The Likud said in a statement that the failure of the media to investigate the activities of Zionist Camp MK Tzippy Livni (when she was in Kadima) in dispatching private investigators to dig up “dirt” on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife Sarah shows “the hypocrisy of the media, which misses no opportunity to follow up on even a hint of wrongdoing by the prime minister. Yet in this situation, we hear nothing but silence.”

The statement was issued in response to a Channel Two News report that police have been investigating an allegation that in 2009, Livni, who was then a top member of Kadima, hired investigators to find information that could be used against the Netanyahus in the election that year. One of the investigators interviewed on the news said that he had been hired by Kadima, and the former head of the party, Moshe Shachori, said in testimony in a separate case that the party had indeed hired investigators for that purpose. According to the investigator, he had attended at least one meeting with party officials, “in the office of the chairperson,” Livni.

Among the tasks the investigator was asked to carry out was long-distance observation of the Netanyahus in their hotel room, and to plant microphones and video equipment to record the Netanyahus without their knowledge, which would constitute a crime. In addition, he said, Kadima paid the bill to the investigators after the election using government funding, claiming that the money was for “vehicle expenses.”

In its statement, the Likud said that the media had been covering up the incident. “Livni has been interviewed at least twice since the report, and not one question has been asked of her regarding this incident. Imagine if the Likud headed by Netanyahu had sent private investigators to spy on Livni and her husband. The ‘rule of law’ would shake, there would be endless discussions in the Knesset, investigations, headlines, and more – but in this situation we hear nothing. There is no better barometer for the hypocrisy of the media than when it comes to Netanyahu,” the Likud statement said.