Netanyahu in court as talks to form government falter
Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career was on the line yesterday as he appeared in court on corruption charges and his negotiations to form a new government appeared to be heading for failure.
Israel’s twin political and legal crises converged on a day of high political drama as Netanyahu was met outside the Jerusalem district court by protesters calling him “crime minister”.
The 71-year-old, who is the first Israeli prime minister to be indicted while in office, faces charges of bribery, corruption and breach of trust. He denies all the allegations.
Prosecutors allege he promoted regulations that allowed Bezeq telecoms company to earn millions in profit in exchange for favourable coverage on its popular news site Walla. Ilhan Yeshua, the former chief executive of Walla, said he was forced “to make negative articles about the prime minister and his wife disappear and post articles that benefit them”.
He was compelled to write hitpieces against Netanyahu’s enemies, giving them rude nicknames, he said.
Yeshua said he never spoke directly to Netanyahu, and that requests also came from intermediaries, including former Netanyahu aide Nir Hefetz, who has turned state’s witness and is also expected to testify against the prime minister.
He said Shaul Elovitch, who owns Bezeq with his wife, Iris, referred to Netanyahu as “the big guy”, and would also show him text messages from the prime minister’s son, Yair, asking for articles to be changed or taken down.
Hours after the hearing ended, Netanyahu insisted in an unscheduled address that it was the prosecution that abused its office.
“This is what a coup looks like,” he charged in inflammatory remarks indirectly aimed at Avichai Mandelblit, the Netanyahu-appointed attorneygeneral who filed the charges against him.
Away from the court, President Reuven Rivlin held talks to determine which party leader had the best chance of forming a stable government following the March 23 election.
Israel remains mired in the worst political crisis in its 73-year history, with voters and the 120-member Parliament split over whether Netanyahu deserves to extend his record tenure of 12 consecutive years.
“The direction of the talks so far is a fifth election,” Rivlin told representatives of the Blue and White Party, who said that they are open to any options other than a government headed by Netanyahu.
Yesterday, Netanyahu had 46 endorsements, and the opposition Yair Lapid, 32.
Any leader would have to walk a tightrope unifying hard-right Zionist parties, left-wing and Arab parties in order to reach the 61 needed for a majority.
Netanyahu had hoped that the deals that he said he made personally with Pfizer to roll out the world’s quickest Covid-19 vaccination campaign would help win a majority.