Lapid, Bennett fail to close deal, giving Netanyahu advantage
Yamina, Yesh Atid bank on PM not building coalition
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received more endorsements to form the next government than Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid on Monday, making it likely that he will receive the first mandate from President Reuven Rivlin On Tuesday.
In Rivlin’s consultations with the 13 factions in the new Knesset that will be sworn in on Tuesday, some 52 MKs from four factions recommended Netanyahu, while 45 from five factions recommended Lapid. Yamina recommended its leader, Naftali Bennett; New Hope and the two Arab factions did not recommend anyone.
The decision by Yamina and New Hope not to recommend Lapid was aimed at obtaining the mandate from Rivlin for Bennett after Netanyahu fails to form a government during the 28 days he would receive from Rivlin.
The refusal of the Religious Zionist Party to join a coalition backed by Ra’am (United Arab List) will make it very difficult for Netanyahu to build a coalition.
Meanwhile, Yamina and Yesh Atid have started negotiating a unity-government deal in which Bennett would serve as prime minister the first two years and Lapid the final two and a half years. Yamina’s negotiating team is led by strategists Tal Gan-Zvi and Shalom Shlomo, while Yesh Atid’s is led by veteran Lapid adviser Hillel Kubrinsky.
The two sides did not reach an agreement on how to share power and divide portfolios in initial talks, which prevented an agreement from being reached in time for Monday’s consultations with Rivlin.
was behind the scenes leading to those articles.
The real story here is about power, she said, citing the power of Netanyahu as prime minister, of top media tycoons and of attempts to influence the course of the country’s elections, including in 2013 and 2015.
“No one” other than Netanyahu as prime minister “had the full power to give out the benefits” to the tycoons in the case (who are also defendants) that they sought, Ben Ari said.
The benefits given by Netanyahu to Bezeq and Walla owner Shaul Elovitch were worth hundreds of millions of shekels, she said.
The trial started with the prosecution outlining the three public corruption affairs, followed by the initial witness in the first-ever public corruption trial of a sitting prime minister.
Next, the prosecution shifted from Case 4000 to Case 2000, the Yediot Aharonot-Israel Hayom Affair.
Case 2000 is an “overwhelmingly clear bribery case” in which Yediot owner Arnon Mozes tried to bribe Netanyahu to help him harm competition from Israel Hayom, Ben Ari said.
Netanyahu needed Yediot’s positive coverage for his political future and elections, and he willfully misled Mozes into thinking he would advance the bribery scheme, including by taking actions that could have advanced the scheme, she said.
Furthermore, Netanyahu is guilty in Case 2000 because not only did he fail to refuse to go along with the bribery scheme, he actively worked to make it appear that it would go through, she added.
Ben Ari also addressed Case 1000, known as the Illegal Gifts Affair.
Before the court could order a 10-minute break to prepare for calling the first witness, Netanyahu’s lawyer Boaz Ben Tzur and Shaul Elovitch’s lawyer Jacques Chen slammed the prosecution’s opening statement as “violating the rights of my client.”
The opening statement improperly added new details beyond the purview of the indictment, which is supposed to govern the boundaries of the trial, they said.
Presiding Judge Rivkah Freidman-Feldman allowed the two lawyers a few statements, but then she aggressively cut them off, saying that if the prosecution broke any rules, the defense would have the opportunity to raise this at the set time for it to bring its case.
The defense had already filed a detailed rebuttal of all of the charges in writing, she added.
Netanyahu was present and remained until the end of the prosecution’s opening statement. He left before the first witness, former Walla CEO Ilan Yeshua, was called to the stand.
Prosecutors Ben Ari and Yehudit Tirosh faced off against Netanyahu’s lawyers Ben Tzur and Amit Hadad as judges Friedman-Feldman, Moshe Bar-Am and Oded Shaham
NETANYAHU IS accused of bribery for illegally influencing government communications policy in exchange for positive media coverage in Case 4000, the Bezeq-Walla Affair.
In Case 2000, the Yediot Aharonot-Israel Hayom Affair, he is accused of breach of trust for trying to reduce Israel Hayom’s competitiveness in exchange for more positive coverage from Yediot.
In Case 1000, the Illegal Gifts Affair, he is accused of breach of trust for receiving expensive cigars and champagne valued at nearly NIS 700,000. The gifts were received from people with whom he may have had a conflict of interest for trying to help them in the business sector.
According to the amended indictment, from January 17-19, 2013, days before the January 22 election, Netanyahu made no fewer than six demands to Walla owner Shaul Elovitch through intermediaries to influence media coverage positively for him and negatively for Naftali Bennett and the Bayit Yehudi Party.
All of the Netanyahu-Elovitch plans led to the coverage the prime minister sought, including negative coverage of Bennett’s wife allegedly eating at a nonkosher restaurant, in exchange for the prime minister helping Elovitch’s Bezeq obtain NIS 1 billion ($300 million) in profits.
Eventually, there were 315 alleged incidents of Netanyahu interfering with Walla’s news coverage from 2013 until December 2016.
The former Walla CEO is expected to testify for approximately five full-day hearings, followed by being cross-examined by Netanyahu’s lawyers and lawyers for Elovitch – all of which could easily be the trial’s focus until mid-May. •
YESHUA
here?” and threatened to go directly to Netanyahu to get him to drop the requests to tilt coverage.
Netanyahu was hit with the first concrete testimony of allegations of the Case 4000 media bribery scheme against him as Yeshua told the Jerusalem District Court he was ordered to tilt coverage in favor of the prime minister and his wife, Sara.
“At the end of 2012, requests started to come from [Bezeq and Walla owner Shaul] Elovitch to favor positive articles for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife, Sara,” to reduce the prominence of, and take down, unflattering articles and to attack competitors such as Naftali Bennett.
Yeshua alleged that he was “abused” by Netanyahu’s messengers, and that they “were so beaten down” that they “and other reporters started to self-censor and avoid doing critical pieces” on Netanyahu.
The drama was palpable, with Yeshua revealing Netanyahu’s alleged massive efforts to carry out a public character assassination of Bennett just when the
Yamina Party leader is currently weighing whether to secure Netanyahu’s future as premier or to topple him.
Yeshua was describing the background to Case 4000, the Bezeq-Walla Affair, which is the most severe of Netanyahu’s three alleged public corruption affairs.
The allegations are that Netanyahu favored Elovitch’s Bezeq in his communications policy in exchange for positive coverage from Elovitch’s Walla website.
Elovitch’s lawyer Jacques Chen shot up to object that Yeshua was testifying about new issues not mentioned in the indictment.
The court is due to rule about whether these new issues can be part of the trial later this week, he said, adding that the prosecution should not raise them until the court rules.
Netanyahu lawyer Boaz BenTzur also objected to Yeshua’s reference to attacks he was ordered to post on the Walla website against Ayelet Shaked, Yamina’s No. 2, and Uri Ariel.
Regarding Chen, the court asked the prosecution to hold off on the disputed evidence until later in the week. However, regarding Shaked and Ariel, the prosecution quoted from Yeshua’s police statements to show that the evidence was not new.
Ben-Tzur then dropped his objection.
Yeshua’s testimony followed the prosecution’s opening statement earlier Monday. •
“We need a government of national agreement,” Lapid said in a speech on social media on Monday night. “I offered my friend Naftali Bennett the opportunity to form a government with me that will include the spectrum of Israeli politics – parties from the Right, Center and Left – and that will reflect the fact that we live here together.”
Lapid called on MKs to resist pressure from Netanyahu to help him form a government. Netanyahu’s trial resumed Monday, he said, and the prime minister had attacked the legal establishment.
“Anyone who saw Netanyahu’s reckless performance today understands he can’t carry on in his job,” Lapid said. “He’s become dangerous to himself, to Israel and to the rule of law. We have an economy that needs taking care of. We have a society that is hurt and aching. People just want politics out of their lives. They want a government that will let them live their lives in peace.”
New Hope’s representatives, MKs Yoaz Hendel and Yifat Shasha-Biton and MK-elect Ze’ev Elkin, asked Rivlin for more time to try to reach an agreement. When they asked the president to invite Lapid and Bennett to the President’s Residence, he said he would not interfere in that manner.
Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi said on Monday that his party would have recommended that Lapid be tasked with forming the next government had
New Hope recommended him as well.
“We waited today to see the number of recommendations for Yair Lapid,” Tibi said. “Unfortunately, when we got here, the picture became clearer – and although Lapid is the most worthy candidate out of the three, he does not seem to have the required number of recommendations.”
Had the two MKs of Tibi’s Ta’al Party joined New Hope in endorsing Lapid, he would have received 53 endorsements, one more than Netanyahu.
The representatives of Yamina, MKs Ayelet Shaked and Matan Kahana, recommended that Bennett receive the mandate. When Rivlin asked who their second choice was, they refused to answer but expressed interest in receiving the next mandate to form a government from Rivlin if the first candidate does not succeed.
“Naftali Bennett has the best chance of forming a government,” Shaked said.
When Yesh Atid’s representatives argued that Lapid should receive the mandate, Rivlin said Netanyahu had received nearly twice as many votes.
“I don’t see at the moment how Lapid could form a government,” he told them.
Rivlin warned representatives of Blue and White that there could end up being a fifth election.
Blue and White’s backing for Lapid came more than a year after the party split up in a fight between its leaders, Lapid and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz. Gantz held back with his endorsement until now and considered backing Bennett instead in an effort to prevent Netanyahu from forming the next government.
“We will continue to do all we can to ensure that an honest government will be formed and that the mandate will not go to Netanyahu, who is busy with his trial,” Gantz said. “I call on the entire change bloc to recommend MK Lapid to prevent Netanyahu from receiving the mandate.”
Lapid thanked Gantz, saying his party’s support was “part of the healing and the change that the State of Israel needs so much.”
Likud’s representatives, MKs Amir Ohana, Tzachi Hanegbi and Ophir Akunis, formally recommended that Netanyahu form the government and argued with Rivlin for more than half an hour.
“The main consideration that will guide me is entrusting the task to a Knesset member who has the best chance of forming a government that will have the confidence of the new Knesset,” Rivlin said. “This is how all previous Israeli presidents have acted. This is how I acted in previous elections, and this is how I will act now.”
Ohana objected and said the March 23 election was a clear victory for Netanyahu and Likud. He pointed out that the only time in recent memory that a party leader was chosen to form a government who did not receive the most votes was when Kadima beat Likud by one seat in 2009, and Netanyahu,
rather than Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, was asked to form a government by then-president Shimon Peres.
“The Likud is by far the largest faction, and Prime Minister Netanyahu will have the most recommendations, so there is no doubt he will have the best chance to build a government,” Ohana told reporters after meeting Rivlin.