Netanyahu finally takes the stand in his corruption trial

Reality Check
By Editor_1
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to testify in his trial on corruption charges at the district court in Tel Aviv on Tuesday (December 10, 2024) - Pool photo by Menahem Kahana
By Patrick Kingsley and Aaron Boxerman

TEL AVIV— Outside the courthouse, he is one of the most powerful men in the Middle East, overseeing Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip, its occupation of southern Lebanon and recent strikes in Syria.

As he stepped into a cramped and sweltering underground courtroom in Tel Aviv on Tuesday (10) morning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel morphed into the defendant in Case 67104-01-20 — charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

Eight years after the police started investigating him and four years after his trial began, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister was taking the stand for the first time to respond to accusations of corruption that have defined and disrupted Israeli public life for nearly a decade.

“Like everyone who is brought to the witness stand, you are charged with speaking the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” said Rivka Friedman-Feldman, one of three judges hearing the case.

An audience of roughly 100 journalists, lawmakers, government ministers and lawyers craned their necks to catch his response.

“I have waited eight years for this moment — to tell the truth, the truth as I remember it,” replied Netanyahu, gripping the sides of a wooden lectern as he stood to the left of the judges.

It was a humbling moment — a sitting prime minister, forced to answer accusations of graft, before a courtroom filled with his peers. It was also a moment Netanyahu seemed determined to transcend.

“I am shocked by the magnitude of this absurdity,” Netanyahu said.

“I am the prime minister, I am running a country, I am running a war,” he said. “I am not occupying myself with my future, but rather with that of the state of Israel.”

For nearly a decade, the corruption charges against Netanyahu have divided Israel, leading to years of political turmoil. The electorate has been roughly evenly split on the question of whether Netanyahu should remain in office while he stands trial — a dynamic that has created an electoral stalemate, leading to five elections in less than four years.

Apart from a brief court appearance to plead not guilty in 2021, Netanyahu had rarely been affected by the day-to-day proceedings of the trial.

Prosecutors and defence lawyers spent years interviewing witnesses instead of the defendant himself. The hearing Tuesday — 1,661 days since the trial began — was set to be Netanyahu’s first full day in court.

Netanyahu had sought to delay his testimony by several months, arguing that his management of the war campaign had disrupted his preparations. But the court agreed to a postponement of only a few days.

While his appearance Tuesday provided a crescendo in the judicial process, it was also, to many Israelis, anti-climactic. The charges against Netanyahu have been a part of Israeli discourse for so long that the spectacle of a prime minister on trial no longer seems as shocking as it once did.

“The public has completely accepted the idea that we have a sitting prime minister who has been investigated, indicted and is now on trial — even in the middle of a war,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, a political analyst who attended the hearing Tuesday.

“What would have been unimaginable 10 years ago has been completely normalized,” she said.

Netanyahu is charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three separate but related cases. The charges centre on claims that he gave regulatory favours and diplomatic support to prominent businesspeople in exchange for gifts and sympathetic media coverage.

The trial is expected to continue for years, and Netanyahu will likely take the stand several times a week for several months.

To Netanyahu’s critics, the trial is a litmus test for democracy: a chance to see whether a sitting prime minister, who has refused to resign of his own accord, can be held to account for crimes he is accused of committing in office.

To his supporters, it constitutes an attack on democracy: an attempt by the country’s liberal establishment to oust Netanyahu on spurious judicial grounds after failing to do so at the ballot box.

“A disgrace,” shouted Tally Gotliv, a lawmaker from Netanyahu’s party, shortly before the hearing began.

“Persecution,” said Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of several government ministers to attend the hearing in solidarity with their leader.

-New York Times

 

 

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