Netanyahu denies calling "NY Times," "Haaretz" Israel's biggest enemies

"Jerusalem Post" editor Steve Linde claims the prime minister told him "Haaretz" and "The New York Times" are the country's biggest enemies.

"The prime minister did not make the remarks attributed to him," his office said. "The prime minister today met with the Dutch Parliament's foreign affairs committee, and said at the start of the meeting, 'I heard a claim that I said that 'Haaretz' and 'The New York Times' are Israel's biggest enemies. That's not true. Iran and its emissaries are the enemies of Israel'."

"The Jerusalem Post" editor Steve Linde told a conference in Tel Aviv of the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO) on Wednesday, that Netanyahu made the remark to him about the newspapers at a private meeting "a couple of weeks ago" at the Prime Minister’s Office in Tel Aviv.

In a recording of Linde's speech provided to the "JTA", Linde said, “He said, ‘You know, Steve, we have two main enemies.' And I thought he was going to talk about, you know, Iran, maybe Hamas. He said, ‘It’s The New York Times and Haaretz.’ He said, ‘They set the agenda for an anti-Israel campaign all over the world. Journalists read them every morning and base their news stories … on what they read in The New York Times and Haaretz'."

Linde said he and other participants at the meeting asked Netanyahu whether he really thought that the media had that strong a role in shaping world opinion on Israel, and the prime minister replied, “Absolutely."

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 19, 2012

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