corruption – HolyLandJustice.org

margalit-israel-netanyahu_01 — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has thrown in his lot with Trump and rising anti-liberal forces. (photo: Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty)

As corruption allegations mount against the Prime Minister, his air of invincibility has been punctured.

By Ruth Margalit | The New Yorker | Mar 6, 2018

“It’s the Louis XIV syndrome. More than just saying that the state is him, his feeling and the feeling of those around him, is that the damage to the party and the country by his resigning would be so great that it’s worth doing things that would have been unthinkable were it anyone else.”
— Nahum Barnea, Israeli columnist for Yediot Ahronot

Israel is famously low on pomp and circumstance. Attend an Israeli wedding and guests are likely to appear in jeans, with sunglasses perched on their foreheads. When Donald Trump landed at Ben Gurion Airport last May, the Israeli government tried to keep it stately — red carpet, military orchestra — but it wasn’t long before a member of the ruling Likud Party whipped out his cell phone and snapped a selfie with the American President on the tarmac. So minimal is the ceremoniousness that, whenever it exists, it tends to take on outsized meaning.

One such ceremony took place on Monday, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Trump in the Oval Office. Netanyahu tried to project an air of business as usual — the relationship between the United States and Israel “has never been better,” he gushed — even as Trump may have quickened the Israeli leader’s pulse by saying, nonchalantly, that “we have a shot” at “doing” peace with the Palestinians. But only one thing was on the mind of the travelling Israeli press corps. A reporter asked, “Prime Minister Netanyahu, would you like to comment about the latest news coming from Israel?”

“I will later,” Netanyahu replied quietly, maintaining a glued-on smile. Continue reading “Israel contemplates a future without Netanyahu”

merlin_133640307_2c6c8e73-a60b-49f8-aa8a-e238dacaa1fd-superjumbo — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Feb 11, 2018. (photo: Ronen Zvulun)

The police accuse Netanyahu of accepting nearly $300,000 in gifts over 10 years.

By David Halbfinger and Isabel Kershner | The New York Times | Feb 13, 2018

“[The Prime Minister is] up to his neck in investigations. He does not have a public or moral mandate to determine such fateful matters for the state of Israel when there is the fear, and I have to say it is real and not without basis, that he will make decisions based on his personal interest in political survival and not based on the national interest.”
— Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking about former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was forced to resign in 2008

The Israeli police recommended on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, casting a pall over the future of a tenacious leader who has become almost synonymous with his country. The announcement instantly raised doubts about his ability to stay in office.

Concluding a yearlong graft investigation, the police recommended that Mr. Netanyahu face prosecution in two corruption cases: a gifts-for-favors affair known as Case 1000, and a second scandal, called Case 2000, in which Mr. Netanyahu is suspected of back-room dealings with Arnon Mozes, publisher of the popular newspaper Yediot Aharonot, to ensure more favorable coverage.

Continue reading “Israeli police recommend corruption charges for Netanyahu”