Netanyahu won’t step down, criticizes bribery allegations
JERUSALEM — Fighting back against new allegations of corruption from Israeli police and calls for his resignation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday assailed investigators’ findings as “full of holes, like Swiss cheese,” and vowed to serve to the end of his term.
After a yearlong graft inquiry, police recommended late Tuesday that Netanyahu face prosecution on bribery, fraud and breach-of-trust charges. They said there was evidence he had accepted nearly $300,000 in gifts in exchange for official actions benefiting his patrons and had backroom dealings with the publisher of a leading newspaper to ensure more favorable coverage.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu coolly hit back at the police, at a critical witness against him, and against political opponents and critics demanding that he resign or at least step aside while he is under investigation.
“The coalition is stable, and no one, me or anyone else, has plans to go to elections,” he said. “We will continue to work together with you for the citizens of the state of Israel, until the end of our term.”
The prime minister, echoed by fellow members of Likud, his right-wing party, also seized on the revelation that an important witness against him was a rival for his job — Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party — to try to discredit the findings of the police investigation.
Netanyahu’s critics, in the political opposition and across much of the Israeli news media, demanded that he resign or at least step aside until he is cleared by declaring himself incapacitated.
Netanyahu’s term expires in late 2019.
As a legal matter, the case now goes to state prosecutors and the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, a onetime Netanyahu aide, who will decide whether to file formal charges.