Netanyahu is trying to play the victim but he may struggle to pull it off

analysis

An old Jewish folktale explains Benjamin Netanyahu’s political strategy in the face of the escalating corruption case against him: A Polish count demanded that the rabbi of the village on his lands appear before him. The rabbi and his assistant arrived to find the count petting his hound. “Teach this dog to talk,” said the count, “or I’ll expel the Jews.” The rabbi stroked his beard, and replied, “Certainly, I’ll teach him. But it will take a year.” After they left the manor house, the assistant demanded, “How could you agree? We’re doomed!” “Don’t worry,” said the rabbi. “A year is a long time. Either the dog will die or the count will die.”

The story is so well known that in Hebrew you need only say “the count will die” to have told the whole thing. In Netanyahu’s case, it has a double meaning: He’s playing for time, and he’s presenting himself — the cigarpuffing fourth-term Prime Minister — as being like the rabbi in the tale, the little guy who’s up against malevolent forces.

On Wednesday, Israel’s national police force released its long-awaited conclusions in two investigations against Netanyahu, saying there was sufficiently solid evidence to indict the Prime Minister for bribery.

Netanyahu answered the police with a speech insisting on his innocence. That’s his right.

But for months he has portrayed the investigation as a slow-motion coup attempt by the press, the left and the police.

In Wednesday’s speech, Netanyahu suggested the police were driven by personal animus, though he’d dedicated his “entire life” to the state. In short, the dangerous, powerful police were trying to crush poor, idealistic Benjamin Netanyahu.

The victim gambit is transparently

The essential flaw in Netanyahu’s strategy is that he’s not a victim. He’s the man who has grown used to thinking that power is his personal property.

false. But despite the damning recommendations, peculiar legal and political twists could help Netanyahu hold on to power.

To start with, the police only recommend. It’s the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, who has to decide whether to indict. In theory, the threshold of evidence should be the same for the Prime Minister as for any citizen. But indicting the Prime Minister is likely to lead to the fall of the government and possibly to new elections. If, after all that, the prosecution fails to get a conviction, it could confirm Netanyahu’s narrative of a coup by law enforcement.

So Mandelblit, never known for quick decisions, is likely to be even more cautious about this one. A year could easily pass.

Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners are sticking with him, at least until they see a major shift in public mood. Yet that shift could be toward Netanyahu if the tension on the Syrian border keeps growing. When war looms, people tend to rally around the Government. It is impossible to prove that Netanyahu is acting or speaking a shade too aggressively in order to focus attention on the external threat. It would also be naive to ignore the possibility.

Barring a flare-up in the north, though, the likely escalation is in demonstrations against corruption, which have been going on for months.

The essential flaw in Netanyahu’s strategy is that he’s not a victim. He’s the man who has grown used to thinking that power is his personal property.

And after the police recommendations, it might not take all that long for his support to crumble. Gershom Gorenberg is an Israeli historian and journalist