JERUSALEM — 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 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 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 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.
Wednesday, Netanyahu’s office began to back away from its original story, issuing a statement saying the report about visiting a secret military installation was a well-intentioned “independent initiative.”
