Israel: is this the end for Netanyahu?
Benjamin Netanyahu’s indictment on corruption charges has plunged Israeli politics into “uncertainty and chaos”, said David M. Halbfinger in The New York Times. Last month, the country’s prime minister was charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust – charges stemming from three separate cases involving the trading of official favours. He stands accused of providing hundreds of millions of dollars in regulatory benefits to the parent company of Walla!, an Israeli news website, in return for favourable coverage. It is also alleged that he received gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars (including what Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit called a “veritable supply chain” of champagne and cigars) from expatriate Israeli film producer Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer. Finally, in calls with the publisher of Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s bestselling newspaper, he allegedly offered to put pressure on a rival publication in return for its support. In response to the indictment, Netanyahu claimed that he was the victim of an “attempted coup”, and called on his supporters to mobilise in resistance. Alas for him, less than 3,000 turned out at a rally last week to support him.
After a three-year investigation, the charges were hardly unexpected – but they still come at a “dangerous time”, said Le Monde (Paris). Elections in April and September failed to produce a viable coalition government, and Israel’s democracy is “paralysed”. The indictment doesn’t oblige Netanyahu to resign, but it does put him under great pressure to do so. The 70-year-old is Israel’s longestserving PM, and arguably the most successful politician in its history, said Chemi Shalev in Haaretz (Tel Aviv). Charismatic, highly intelligent, wily, well-read and a brilliant speaker, Netanyahu could have left an “indelibly positive mark”. He could have “reformed Israel’s incoherent democracy” and transformed its government. Yes, he could have even made peace with the Palestinians. Instead, he’ll be remembered as a leader who “never stopped looking out for number one”. Now, not content with “clinging to power ignominiously”, he is effectively launching an “insurgency against the rule of law”. Netanyahu seems to be trying to “gut the democratic system”.
Not since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 has Israel seemed so “imperilled from within”, said Scott Lasensky in The Jerusalem Post. It is some consolation, though, that the nation’s institutions have stood up well to Netanyahu’s authoritarian antics. The rule of law, the political opposition and the free press remain in good health. And Netanyahu’s grip on power is weakening, said The Economist (London). He has conceded that a vote on his leadership of the Likud party is needed. And if, as seems likely, he fails to form a coalition by the 11 December deadline, Israel will head to the polls once again.