We don’t know, at this stage, whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ever did anything to actually advance the deal he allegedly cooked up with Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper publisher Arnon Mozes, under which Yedioth was to scale back its routinely hostile coverage of Netanyahu in return for the prime minister advancing legislation that would defang its pro-Netanyahu rival daily, Israel Hayom.

We don’t know, at this stage, whether Netanyahu’s alleged readiness to cut such a deal constitutes criminal action — an illicit quid pro quo.

We don’t know whether the selected quotations from the transcripts of the two men’s tape-recorded conversations have been presented accurately in the leaks of the last few days, or what different interpretations might become plain were we to hear the recordings in full.  We don’t know whether Israel’s longest-serving prime minister after David Ben-Gurion is ultimately going to be forced out of office because of tape recordings, Richard Nixon-style, that he himself ordered.

Read the full article at Times of Israel.