Edited by: Fern Sidman
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday launched a tirade against the nation’s justice system as his long-awaited corruption trial got underway, accusing police and prosecutors of conspiring to “depose” him, as was reported by the Associated Press.
Netanyahu’s comments opened what is sure to be a tumultuous period for Israel as he becomes the country’s first sitting prime minister ever to go on trial. Hundreds of protesters calling him the “crime minister” demonstrated outside his official residence, while hundreds of supporters, including leading members of his Likud party, rallied in support of him at the courthouse.
Netanyahu faces charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of corruption cases stemming from ties to wealthy friends. He is accused of accepting lavish gifts and offering to grant favors to powerful media moguls in exchange for favorable coverage of him and his family, according to an AP report. He denies the charges, which come after years of scandals swirling around the family.
When he arrived at the courthouse, Netanyahu revived his claims that he is the victim of a deep state-type conspiracy by media, police, prosecutors and judges out to oust him.
“The objective is to depose a strong, right-wing prime minister, and thus remove the nationalist camp from the leadership of the country for many years,” he told reporters in the lobby, as was reported by the AP.
Netanyahu entered the Jerusalem courtroom wearing a blue surgical mask, in line with public health restriction due to the coronavirus pandemic. He stood and talked to his lawyer and attorneys for other defendants, refusing to sit until TV cameras left the room.
As the proceedings began, the lawyers and judges also wore masks, with the three-judge panel sitting behind a glass divider. In a hint of what could lie ahead, his lawyers said they would need two to three months to respond to the arraignment, and said they needed additional funds to add to their defense’s legal team, according to the AP.
Netanyahu sat silently and did not speak during the one-hour session, rising just once, briefly, to confirm he understood the charges. He will not be required to attend future hearings during a case that legal analysts expect to stretch over several years. Throughout the proceedings, the loud chants of his supporters could be heard in the courtroom.
Before the session, Netanyahu said police and prosecutors had conspired to “tailor” a case against him, and said the evidence was “contaminated” and exaggerated. He called for the court proceedings to be broadcast live on TV to ensure “full transparency.”
“While the media continues to deal with nonsense, with these false, trumped up cases, I will continue to lead the state of Israel and deal with issues that really matter to you,” he said, including to resuscitate the economy, and “continue to save the lives of thousands of Israelis ahead of the possibility of a second wave of coronavirus.”
Critics have said that Netanyahu’s arguments have undermined Israel’s court system and risk deeper damage to the country’s democratic institutions.
Netanyahu’s fitness for office was the key issue in three inconclusive elections over the past year. After vowing never to sit with an indicted prime minister, Netanyahu’s challenger, Benny Gantz, agreed in March to form a power-sharing coalition with his rival.
Harvard law professor and constitutional expert Alan Dershowitz said in an interview with Israeli Army Radio Sunday morning, hours before the opening of the trial that “Netanyahu’s trial poses great danger to democracy and the rule of law. This is the first time in the history of any modern country that a man is being prosecuted for trying to gain positive media coverage.”
When talking about the criticism against Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, Dershowitz said: “It’s a terrible thing to call the attorney general a criminal; he’s not. He is a decent person with which I disagree. In a democracy there’s a place for criticism against those who make mistakes, but you can’t threaten them or call them criminals.”
Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin (Likud) said that “the day of the opening of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s trial will be remembered as one of the low points of the Israeli legal system.
“The charges against the prime minister are unprecedented in Western democracies,” Levin wrote. “Their realm, if at all, should have been the ethical and noncriminal sphere, and it’s no wonder that the world’s top jurists have been harshly criticizing it.”
Levin was seemingly referring to the comments of Dershowitz.
“Binyamin Netanyahu won an unprecedented vote in the last election, with the Likud under his leadership receiving the highest number of votes any list has received since the establishment of the state. It was a personal expression of confidence in the prime minister and his leadership, and also a protest in the face of the improper procedure being taken against him,” Levin continued.
Levin also presented Netanyahu as a victim of a hostile law enforcement system: “As one who knows Prime Minister Netanyahu closely, as well as his work and his commitment to the State of Israel and the citizens of Israel, I know that he was done a terrible injustice. I believe that any decent person who examines the cases and the proceedings prior to filing the indictments will immediately conclude that these cases must result in only one way – a collapse.”
Also speaking out on the Netanyahu trial was Rabbi Dov Fischer, an renowned attorney and law professor in Southern California whose scholarly articles have appeared in Israel HaYom, Arutz Sheva, the American Spectator and other prestigious publications. In his article entitled, “On Mandelblit’s Kangaroo Court, Rav Meir Kahane and Israeli Democracy” that appeared on Monday at the Arutz Sheva web site, Rabbi Fischer writes: “It never was Rabbi Meir Kahane and his Kach Party that actually undermined Israeli democracy. It was — and is — Israeli democracy that undermines and threatens Israeli democracy.”
He adds: “There is absolutely nothing more devastating to and destructive of Israeli democracy than the sham and kangaroo court now trying Prime Minister Netanyahu on three sets of ridiculous charges.” As such, Rabbi Fischer writes that “the Left is determined to take him (Netanyahu) down. As a result, Netanyahu is on trial — and there is reason to fear that Avichai Mandelblit’s kangaroo court ultimately will convict him — for utter non-crimes. Bibi’s alleged actions were not criminal but political.”
He concludes by saying, “There is no other way to say it: Democracy by its nature always entails aspects of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. By accepted convention throughout the democratic world, the exchange of political favors for political support is at the core of how the game is played. Thus, the trial of Prime Minister Netanyahu is a disgrace, a strong-armed effort by the Israeli Left to overthrow a legitimately elected Prime Minister, and the most severe danger to Israeli democracy in the country’s history.”
In an op-ed piece that appeared on Sunday in the Jerusalem Post, Herb Keinon writes, “ And what about that presumption of innocence? Are not demands that Netanyahu leave office even though the law does not compel him to do so evidence that he is not being given the presumption of innocence? Has the coverage of the case in the media been an example of giving him this presumption of innocence? For many of Netanyahu’s opponents, the indictment itself is a presumption of guilt, and he should be treated accordingly.
He adds: “Even Netanyahu’s fierce opponents admit that some of the methods used in this case – from endless leaks to ways in which evidence was extracted from state’s witnesses – were questionable.”
