JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was back in court for his corruption trial on Monday, when the country’s political parties were to decide whether he should form the next government after a split election or resign to stand. focus on your legal problems.
Between the testimony of a witness in a Jerusalem court and consultations in the president’s office on the other side of the city, this promised to be a day of extraordinary political drama, bringing to light Netanyahu’s increasingly desperate efforts to remain in power.
He has been Israel’s prime minister for the longest time and has seized power through four tough elections in less than two years, despite facing charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The March 23 election was largely a referendum on his leadership, but it did not produce a clear verdict.
Meanwhile, Israeli political parties began to meet with President Reuven Rivlin to recommend which candidate should be tasked with forming the next government.
After each election, the president of Israel is responsible for appointing a party leader to try to form a governing majority. This decision is generally clear, but Rivlin faces a difficult choice due to the fragmented electoral results that left the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, divided between 13 parties with wide ideological differences.
Neither Netanyahu’s allies nor his enemies guaranteed a ruling majority. Therefore, his fate may fall on Naftali Bennett, a former right-wing ally with whom he has strained relations, and Mansour Abbas, the leader of a small Arab Islamic party that has also not yet committed to the pro or anti-Netanyahu bloc.
Later on Monday, Bennett recommended himself as the next prime minister, deepening Israel’s political stalemate. His right-wing Yamina party was in a position to serve as kingmaker, but he refused to take sides.
Yamina has only seven seats in parliament, making it difficult to form a governing coalition. Bennett hopes to be able to become a consensus candidate, capable of overcoming the deep divisions between rival factions.
Rivlin was previously quoted by the Israeli media as saying he did not see how a governing coalition could be formed and expressing concern that Israel would enter a fifth round of elections.
At the Jerusalem District Court, Netanyahu sat with his lawyers while prosecutor Liat Ben-Ari read the charges against him.
“The relationship between Netanyahu and the defendants has become a currency, something that could be negotiated,” she said. “Currency can distort the judgment of a public official.”
Netanyahu’s lawyers tried to refute, but were interrupted by Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman, who said she had already responded to the charges at the start of the trial. The judge then ordered a brief break, during which Netanyahu left the court.
Outside the courtroom, dozens of Prime Minister supporters and opponents gathered to protest on opposite sides of the building amid the strong police presence, highlighting Israel’s deep divisions. Anti-Netanyahu protesters have been holding weekly demonstrations for months, asking him to step down.
A few kilometers away, a delegation from the right-wing Likud party of Netanyahu formally recommended him as prime minister at a meeting with Rivlin.
Netanyahu is accused of accepting bribes, fraud and breaches of trust in three cases.
The first involves Netanyahu allegedly receiving gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy friends, including Hollywood film producer Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer. In the second case, Netanyahu is accused of trying to orchestrate positive coverage in a major Israeli newspaper in exchange for restricting the distribution of a free pro-Netanyahu tabloid.
The third, dubbed Case 4000, which will be the focus of Monday’s first testimony, claims that Netanyahu supported legislation worth hundreds of millions of dollars for the owner of Israeli telecoms giant Bezeq in exchange for positive coverage on his news site Walla.
Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing, rejecting the charges against him as part of a “witch hunt” of the media and law enforcement to remove him. His trial began last year and could last for another two years.
In January, prosecutors alleged 315 occurrences de Walla being asked to change his coverage to be more favorable to Netanyahu and his family. They said that 150 of them involved Netanyahu himself.
According to the accusations, Shaul Elovitch, CEO of Bezeq, “exerted strong and continuous pressure” on Ilan Yeshua, the former chief editor of Walla, to alter the articles on the website to meet the demands of Netanyahu and his family.
Yeshua, who took a stand after Netanyahu’s departure, said he regularly received requests from Elovitch and the Prime Minister’s advisers, asking him to defame the Prime Minister’s political opponents, including Bennett. He then forwarded the requests to the site’s main editors.
Bennett was referred to as the “mischievous religious” in internal messages, said Yeshua.
Israeli law does not require prime ministers to resign while on charges, and Netanyahu refused to do so. This left the country deeply divided. An emergency unit government formed last year to deal with the coronavirus crisis was mired in political disputes and collapsed in less than a year because of its inability to pass a budget.
Netanyahu overtook Israel’s founder David Ben Gurion in 2019 as the country’s oldest prime minister, having held the post continuously since 2009 and for several years in the 1990s.
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Associated Press writer Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem contributed to this report.