Israel’s Netanyahu vows not to step down
Coalition supports longtime PM
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to carry on Wednesday after police recommended indicting him on corruption charges, angrily dismissing the allegations and the critics calling on him to step down.
With his coalition partners dutifully lining up behind him, the longtime leader readied himself for a prolonged battle over his political legitimacy as the attorney general considers whether to ultimately press charges.
The police announcement that Mr. Netanyahu’s acceptance of nearly $300,000 in gifts from two billionaires amounted to bribery sent shockwaves through the Israeli political system and delivered a humiliating blow to Mr. Netanyahu after years of allegations and investigations. But it did not appear to immediately threaten his lengthy rule as reaction largely fell along partisan lines. Nearly all of Mr. Netanyahu’s Cabinet ministers issued statements of support and his coalition partners all signaled they would stick by him, for now.
“Let me reassure you: the coalition is stable. No one, not I and no one else, plans to go to elections. We will continue to work together with you for the people of Israel until the end of our term,” he said to a gathering of local government officials in Tel Aviv. “After I read the recommendations report, I can say it is biased, extreme, full of holes like Swiss cheese and doesn’t hold water.”
In an impassioned defense, Mr. Netanyahu took aim at police investigators saying their figures were vastly inflated and tried “to create a false impression of exchanges that never existed.”
Though he is not legally compelled to resign, several opposition figures called on Mr. Netanyahu to do so.
Under similar circumstances a decade ago Mr. Netanyahu, then the opposition leader, urged then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign after police recommended he be indicted.
In contrast to Mr. Olmert, who eventually stepped down and was convicted and imprisoned, Mr. Netanyahu is still relatively popular with the public and enjoys broad political support in his Likud party and among coalition partners — nearly all of whom stand to lose power if elections were held today.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who oversees the police, said the prime minister “deserves the assumption of innocence,” while Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition whip, David Amsalem, accused the police of committing “an illegitimate act here to attempt a coup d’etat in Israel.”