Netanyahu on Yedioth: It's not a newspaper, it's Pravda

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lambasted Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth Monday over its misreporting of a conversation he held with the father of a soldier standing trial for killing an immobilized terrorist, saying Yedioth "is not a newspaper, it's Pravda."

The harsh response followed Yedioth Ahronoth's Sunday front page, which was devoted almost entirely to an anti-Netanyahu opinion piece saying that the prime minister had compared the parents of Sgt. Elor Azaria, who is facing manslaughter charges over the incident, to parents of fallen soldiers.

The piece followed an interview Netanyahu gave Channel 2 News' political correspondent Udi Segal on Saturday, in which he mentioned his call to Azaria's father, Charlie.

In an interview with Army Radio on Monday, Netanyahu said, "First of all, I apologized if anyone interpreted my words incorrectly, but in the same breath I'm telling you that someone twisted [my words] intentionally."

Netanyahu continued: "When a certain newspaper, if it can call itself a newspaper -- Yedioth Ahronoth -- takes the entire front page and ... makes it into a twisted story, a false, mean-spirited report, and tries to force that comparison [on readers], I say: I didn't intend to make it, and I'm sorry if anyone took it that way. But they [Yedioth] absolutely intended to create that false connection and [Yedioth] is no longer a newspaper, it's Pravda," he said, referring to the Soviet propaganda mouthpiece.

Yedioth's front page ran a photo of the prime minister along with the headline: "Netanyahu's infuriating comparison: 'I called the parents of the soldier from the Hebron shooting just like I call the parents of fallen or missing soldiers.'" An opinion piece by senior Yedioth columnist Nahum Barnea, which was billed prominently on the front page, declared unequivocally that Netanyahu had drawn that comparison.

In the radio interview, Netanyahu stressed: "There can be no comparison between the distress of parents in situations like [that of the parents of Azaria] and the horrible distress, the terrible suffering, of bereaved parents. I'm saying this from personal knowledge, unfortunately. There was no intention to make any such comparison."

On Sunday, the Prime Minister's Office issued an official statement in which Netanyahu apologized to anyone who might have been offended by his words, and stressed that he had not intended to compare the situation of the Azaria family with that of bereaved families, and had expressed himself poorly.

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