Netanyahu is insisting he will remain in office. “Over these years, there have been no less than 15 investigations against me with the goal of bringing me down,” he said in televised remarks. “They all began with explosive headlines, live broadcasts from the studios, and some of them even with noisy police recommendations [to indict], just like today. All those efforts, without exception ended with nothing.” [...]
The details of cases 1000 and 2000—as they are known—have been around for more than year. The first scandal centers on champagne and cigars Netanyahu allegedly received from a political benefactor. The second involves conversations he had with the publisher of Yediot Aharonot, the Israeli newspaper. Israeli reports say Netanyahu agreed to help weaken a rival newspaper—Israel Hayom, owned by Sheldon Adelson—in exchange for favorable coverage from Yediot Aharonot. Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing in both cases.
Netanyahu is not the first Israeli leader to face legal troubles. Over the past two decades, each one of Israel’s prime ministers—Ehud Olmert, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Barak—has been investigated for corruption, though neither Sharon nor Barak was charged. (Olmert was tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison. He served 16 months.) Nor is this the first time Netanyahu has been tarnished by scandal—though the accusations previously did little to affect his popularity. [...]
Shmuel Rosner, a political editor at The Jewish Journal, wrote in The New York Times that it’s not that Israelis don’t care about corruption, it’s that they don’t believe politicians should be harassed because, in his words, “everybody knows that politicians often tend to be, well, not the most honorable people. Still, we need them, and we need to let them do their jobs.”
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