Why We Must Join Trump in Demanding the End to the Criminal Proceedings against Netanyahu

   By: Amy Neustein, Ph.D. 

The US-Israel stealth mission to bomb Iran’s ensconced nuclear plants was a stunning achievement in both military might and in painstaking coordination between two world leaders. The logistics of this mission posed some of the most challenging conditions that one has ever faced in a military operation. Specifically, the US had to fly B-2 bombers with very heavy payloads, over two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles, and 125 U.S. aircraft to support the attack. And to reach their destination, they had to fly over Syria and Lebanon, and parts of Iraq, without being caught.

Such an operation required months and months of preparation. Certainly, Israel’s steady efforts to degrade the air defenses in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran paid off, and the mission was recognized as an achievement of epic proportion.

US cabinet members who participated in a phone call between Netanyahu and Trump immediately following the successful raid on Iran’s formidable nuclear facilities described the feeling as “cathartic.” For Bibi, it was the result of his 30-year relentless campaign against Iran, alerting the world to Iran’s existential threat to Israel and to neighboring countries.

The morning after the successful US-Israel covert mission to destroy Iran’s major nuclear plants, news reports showed Bibi standing at the Kotel holding a siddur as he expressed gratitude to Hashem for this extraordinary defeat of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Like the “Battle of Jericho,” where the walls collapsed after the Israelites marched around the city blowing horns for six days, the walls of Fordow were blown apart by the bunker-buster 30,000 pound bombs, leaving the centrifuges and enriched uranium 235 isotopes (the fissile variant used in nuclear reactors and weapons) severely damaged.

Yet, amidst this legendary US-Israel joint strike on Iran’s redoubtable nuclear facilities, the war hero at the center of this mission – the person credited with miraculously galvanizing President Trump to take an unprecedented military part in Israel’s existential battles – is the target of criminal prosecutions. Not unlike the Dreyfus Affair, Netanyahu is being railroaded by his political adversaries for crimes he did not commit.

The reason for this is simple. Bogus charges were brought against the prime minister of the Jewish state to tie his hands so that he could not participate in judicial reform by preventing him from naming judges to serve on the bench. That is, to stay in office while these criminal trials were pending, Netanyahu had to sign an agreement that he would not appoint judges to the bench, lest it would appear as a “conflict-of-interest” because he himself was before the courts. In short, this gambit of false charges were brought against the prime minister to prejudice him so that he would not be able to reign in the freewheeling judiciary enjoying undeserved power for far too many years.

Caught in this imbroglio of a long-standing fight between the judicial branch and the government, Netanyahu became a hapless victim.

Trump has shared a similar fate of politically-motivated witch hunts against him and recognized the travesty of justice. Even worse, this was being done to Israel’s prime minister while facing an existential fight for the survival of the Jewish state. So, shortly after the successful US-Israel strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump declared on Truth Social (his social media platform) that the US “won’t stand” for Netanyahu remaining on trial. In fact, Trump renewed his exhortation for all charges to be dropped. Preserving the same tone of urgency, he stated in his second social media posting: “LET BIBI GO, HE’S GOT A BIG JOB TO DO!”

In response, the head of the Israel Bar Association, Amit Becher, said that if Netanyahu had requested the US president to demand that the charges against him be dismissed, it would be a “criminal offense.” I raise the question, “Is this a threat?” Or is it a harbinger of a whole new set of charges to be brought against Netanyahu for alleged interference with a prosecution/obstruction of justice? If so, then Israel’s attorney general will need to subpoena Trump as a witness to verify whether or not Netanyahu cajoled, coopted, or suborned the US president to come to his aid? Hence, we’ve tied a Gordian so tight it becomes impossible to break.

And the one person confronting the existential threat against the Jewish state now needs the United States to remove the existential threat against him.

Amy Neustein, Ph.D. (sociologist) is the author/editor of 16 academic books. Her most recent book, From Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers are Running from the Family Courts –And What Can be Done about It, 2nd Edition, will be published by Oxford University Press in August.