E09 — The Netantyahu Investigations
Hi everyone and welcome to The Israel Podcast. I’m Avishay Ben Sasson Gordis and this week I’ll be talking about the Netanyahu Investigations.
Benjamin Netanyahu is now in his 9th consecutive year as Prime Minister of Israel, and 12th year overall. In the middle of his fourth term in office, he’s the longest serving Prime Minister Israel has had in the 69 years since its founding. In many ways, for better or worse, he’s the most influential politician Israel has had in the last two decades. He enjoys a stable coalition, no internal political threat in his party the “Likud”, and for the first time ever, a Republican president in the White House. Yet, in recent months, he had very little chance to enjoy his situation as legal tensions mounted surrounding him, and virtually everyone else in his immediate vicinity.
Netanyahu himself is now a suspect in two police investigations, and close confidants of his, as well as former subordinates are suspect in at least two more investigations that pertain to alleged crimes committed in areas under his responsibility. Finally, his wife, Sara, faces potential indictments in several investigations regarding alleged illicit use of public funds for private purposes. Before I begin laying out the different cases and what’s at stake politically, allow me a disclaimer and a bit of background about the legal exposure of Israeli leaders to criminal investigations.
First the disclaimer. Everything I’ll be discussing today is part of ongoing police investigations and criminal procedures. All of what I’ll have to say is based on media reports, and I did my best to accurately represent what seems to be the current state of affairs. However, I feel obliged to say that all of the allegations are at this stage alleged. They have yet to be proven in court, and as such, all the suspects are presumed innocent. Which brings us to the question “can these issues even be debated in court?”. Unlike the US where the president seems to enjoy full immunity from criminal prosecution while in office, in Israel immunity only extends to matters of substantive relevance to an official’s role. That is, charges can be brought against Members of Knesset, Ministers, the Prime Minister, and even the president. This isn’t only an hypothetical. Israeli courts have sent members of each of these classes to jail in recent years.
Let’s go through the list just to get a sense of what I mean by this: Two former members of the minister of Defense’s party are under investigation in a major graft case. Only recently a member of the Joint Arab List, Bassel Ghatas, began serving a two year prison sentence after he was caught on tape smuggling phones for Palestinian security prisoners in late 2016. Several ministers served prison time for corruption offenses including Israel’s current minister of Interior Affairs, Aryeh Derii, who sat in prison for two years between 2000 and 2002. Others were former minister of Finance Avraham Hirshzon, and former minister of Health and Welfare, Shlomo Benizri. Former Justice minister, Haim Ramon was sentenced to community service for sexual assault. These days, Derii is again at the heart of a new criminal investigation, and other members of Netanyahu’s government have dealings with legal authorities or have had in the past.
As for Prime Ministers, Netanyahu’s predecessor in the Prime Minister’s office, Ehud Olmert was only recently released early from jail where he served a year and a half out of a little over two year sentence. Finally, Moshe Katzav, Israel’s eighth president served most of a seven year sentence for two counts of rape, several counts of sexual assault, and one count of obstruction of justice. To put it mildly, Israel has somewhat of a history of sending its leaders to spend some quiet time thinking about their public career.
But what about Netanyahu himself? Despite a short investigation into gift related misconducts during his 1996 to 1999 tenure as Prime Minister which ended with a slap on the hand from the Attorney General and State Prosecutor (a single position in Israel), he has been largely untouched by criminal investigations. This is not to say that he hasn’t been at the heart of controversy at all. Civil suits by employees of the Prime Minister’s formal residence against his wife, Sara, for abuse have been brought several times and have also been successful. He and his wife were also notorious for not paying for services rendered to them.
Moreover, it’s been rumored that Netanyahu’s wife would hold personal grudges against people in Netanyahu’s political vicinity. Purportedly, this is how the rift between Netanyahu and current president Rivlin happened, that led to Netanyahu opposing Rivlin’s presidential bid, and even going so far as considering changing the law to cancel the entire institution of presidency in Israel to stop Rivlin from winning it. Other politicians who’ve been rumored to have been affected by this tendency were the current heads of the Jewish Home party, Bennett and Shared who used to work for Netanyahu. Yet, problematic as all of this might be if true as reported (and there are good reasons to believe it is), it does not amount to criminal conduct, and is fully within the scope of considerations the public can bring to bear when electing its officials.
In the last year, this image has begun to change, and suspicions of criminal activity surfaced against Netanyahu and his closest confidants. Conveniently, the three main cases considered were numbered case 1000, 2000, and 3000 by Israel’s police. So let’s tackle them in this order, and then discuss a couple more important cases on the public agenda right now.
Case 1000 deals with alleged gifts demanded by Netanyahu and his wife from wealthy “friends” of theirs, such as movie producer Arnon Milchen. According to testimonies leaked to the press, the Netanyahu’s would request expensive cigars and alcohol as well as jewelry from their contacts. Netanyahu and several of his wealthy contacts have been interrogated in order to establish whether they received anything in return for their “gifts”, which would amount to bribery. Netanyahu initially claimed there was nothing to the allegations but later changed his line and argues that these were gifts given in good faith by friends. Law authorities however, highly doubt that such gifts were given without anything being given in return. Some evidence of such return benefits have been pointed at.
Case 2000 entails recorded conversations between Netanyahu and the Publisher of Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s second largest newspaper, about a deal between the two of them. The deal as discussed by the two would see Yediot changing its extreme anti-Netanyahu bias opting to cover him positively, in return for Netanyahu limiting the spread of Israel Hayom. Israel Hayom is a free distribution newspaper, funded by Sheldon Adelson, that is generally known to be a platform that was founded and works to support Netanyahu personally against what he believes is hostile press. It is also more to the right than most of Israel’s established press. Israel Hayom dethroned Yediot as Israel’s largest newspaper several years before, and in doing so cut deeply into the proceeds and influence of Yediot’s publisher. The conversation was happening in the context of the 2015 elections that happened largely as a result of legislative attacks again Israel Hayom, that led Netanyahu to dissolve his government.
If you want to hear more about this, I recommend you listen to the first episode of the podcast that discusses Netanyahu’s fixation on the press, in depth.
The recordings that surfaced on the phone of Netanyahu’s former chief of staff, in an investigation against him, was incredibly shocking for many in Israel, myself included. The surprise had to do with the cynicism expressed by the action of both Netanyahu and the publisher, who were willing to trade what many believed were genuine differences in views for naked personal gain. The recording also seems to tie Netanyahu intimately with Israel Hayom, possibly proving that he has control over the paper of the type he denied having for years. The investigation of the case is ongoing, with the US billionaire Adelson, and his wife, investigated. Reportedly, the couple’s disappointment with Netanyahu over his willingness to harm the paper they back, has led to the paper and the couple itself beginning to distance itself from the full loyalty to Netanyahu that was typical of them in the past.
In Netanyahu’s vicinity the response to the case was that he was only trying to lead the publisher of Yediot to expose his anti-Netanyahu bias. However, its unclear that such a defense will hold in court if an indictment will actually come out of this. In addition, there are instances that show that although the full deal didn’t come through, some changes in the editorial line happened in order to signal the seriousness on the part of the publisher.
Finally, we have case 3000 in which Netanyahu is not a suspect as of now. This case deals with alleged bribes handed out to senior figures in the Israeli security establishment, by the German company ThyssenKrupp in order to secure the purchase of naval vessels from the company. Reportedly, in 2009 the head of Israel’s navy demanded that a friend of his by the name of Mickey Ganor, represent the German manufacturer of Israel’s submarines otherwise Israel will purchase submarines elsewhere.
Ganor, demanded a hefty commission for his work, and would receive it when Israel chose to purchase its seventh, eighth, and ninth submarines from the German company. The deal to buy these three submarines, which was finalized in 2016, was opposed by most of Israel’s security establishment, but pushed through by Netanyahu, who also led to the cancellation of a tender for the purchase of missile ships to defend Israel’s natural gas fields. The cancellation of the tender meant that the ships would be purchased from ThyssenKrupp instead of lower bidder. As I’ve already mentioned, the investigation has not led to suspicions against Netanyahu, but two of the lead suspects were very close to him. The first was Netanyahu’s candidate for National Security Advisor, Avriel Bar Yossef, who had to give up the position after reports of ethical misconduct against him surfaced while he was being nominated. Bar Yosef, as deputy National Security Advisor allegedly, advanced the deal from inside the system in return for bribes payed by Ganor.
A second suspect is the Prime Minister’s personal council, and cousin, David Shimron. Shimron served as Ganor’s council and reached out on his behalf to public officials. Shimron and Netanyahu have been forbidden to contact each other. This is somewhat complicated by the fact that Shimron and Netanyahu are represented by the same lawyer, and that Shimron’s law-firm partner as well as his brother-in-law, is Netanyahu’s personal diplomatic envoy, Shlomo Molkho. Netanyahu denies any knowledge of Shimron’s involvement with the shipyard, and any effect of this relationship on his decision making in the matter. Ganor is now in negotiations with law enforcement authorities to cut a deal and implicate his accomplices so developments in the case are expected.
If all of this sounds incredibly byzantine to you, it’s only because it is.
Finally, Netanyahu served for most of the last three years as minister of Communications. The person he appointed as his undersecretary, is suspected of working with the billionaire who has the controlling-interest in Israel’s largest telecommunications company and serving the latter’s interests against the public’s interest and contra his regulatory responsibilities. Both the billionaire, once described by Netanyahu as a friend, and the undersecretary, are under house arrest. Netanyahu again denied knowledge of his appointee’s actions.
In addition to these cases that involve matters of deep public interest, Netanyahu’s wife faces several cases in which she is suspect of using public funds to pay for private expenses. These include the care person for her dying father, ordering food to the official residence against regulations, and buying furniture for use in their private home. These are not cases that involve the Prime Minister himself, but they add to the feeling of legal siege he is under.
While none of these cases have yet to coalesce into an indictment against Netanyahu, nor is it certain that they will, the affect of all of these cases on the political system is very palpable. It’s not clear that Netanyahu would be legally required to resign even if he is indicted, until he is convicted, but there is a feeling that Israel may be heading to elections sooner rather than later. Netanyahu’s coalition partners are using his distress to get him to agree to things he wouldn’t agree to in the past. Such is the case for instance with his decision to freeze the Kotel compromise, which I discussed in my previous episode. It also led to the recent primaries for the leadership of the Labor party that elevated new comer Avi Gabbay. And I already mentioned the possibly shifting allegiance of Israel Hayom.
Netanyahu’s response has been to firmly deny any fault in his actions, and when possible to deny any connections to the case whatsoever. At the same time he and his surrogates have gone on the offensive against the “Lefty” media and the Liberal philanthropic organization “The New Israel Fund” de-popularized by years of delegitimization, blaming them for trying to organize a coup. Specifically, they claim that growing weekly protests outside the home of the Attorney General, are orchestrated by malicious forces out to subvert the will of the Israeli voters.
I can’t tell if and when any of these investigations will amount to anything, I do hope that this helps to somewhat clarify what’s even going on.
That’s it for this episode. Thank you again for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, consider rating the podcast on iTunes, and listening to previous episodes.
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