Mitt Romney doesn’t want the press around when he meets with his biggest donors in Jerusalem.

JERUSALEM — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, who touched down here Saturday night for a day of meetings with top Israeli and Palestinian leaders, plans to wrap up his visit to Israel by collecting money from some of his biggest benefactors behind closed doors.

Some of Romney’s Jewish donors are flying here from the United States to attend the Jerusalem fundraiser on Monday morning, including Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has pledged to personally give tens of millions of dollars to a pro-Romney super PAC.

But Romney’s campaign announced Saturday that it would block the news media from covering the event, which will be held at the King David Hotel. The campaign’s decision to close the fundraiser to the press violates the ground rules it negotiated with news organizations in April, when Romney wrapped up the Republican nomination and began opening some of his finance events to the news media.

Kinda obvious what Obvious Mitt is up to - he’s been really hurt by the “out of touch elitist” meme, and he’s trying to keep it from getting worse. He knows if the press sees what goes on at this gathering of the mega-rich, it’s going to turn into another feeding frenzy. And he doesn’t need that after Britain.