Israeli police recommend two charges of bribery against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, local media reported Tuesday.
The recommended indictment is a result of a 14-month investigation into allegations that the prime minister committed “fraud, breach of trust, and bribes.”
Netanyahu stands accused of accepting over $100,000 in gifts from Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and others. Netanyahu also allegedly asked for positive news coverage by an Israeli publication in exchange for hurting its rival, a free pro-Netanyahu daily.
“He tried to strike a deal that would have provided him with positive coverage in Israel’s second largest newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, in exchange for hurting its free rival, Israel Hayom,” Haaretz reported.
“The publisher of Yedioth Ahronoth, Arnon Mozes, will also be charged, as will Arnon Milchan, who allegedly provided Netanyahu with gifts,” the newspaper added. “Netanyahu will address the public in a live broadcast at 8:45 P.M.”
We’ll see if this amounts to anything, and it could be a guide to how to handle Trump should he ever be charged.
burnspbesq
This has the potential to blow up the governing coalition.
Patricia Kayden
Looking forward to when Trump is in the same boat as Bibi.
Thanks for the calendar, John.
John Revolta
“Another corrupt pol”
Masterful understatement or massive lede-burying?
Corner Stone
Bibi will not face any serious consequences. And Trump will have learned a further lesson.
JPL
@Corner Stone: True. His party might protect him. If they don’t he can move here, because the supreme court said bribery isn’t bribery between friends.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Would it even help if he ended up getting shoved out of office over this? I really don’t know a whole lot about Israel or its politics, but it looks to me like they’ve pretty much cast their lot with right wing nuts who want to get rid of anybody who isn’t just like them.
cain
Unsurprising.. He can join this great administration of white supremacists and anti-semites. He’ll be right at home.
kindness
If it were Trump he’d go on tv and brag about it.
cain
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Excep the far right wing nuts don’t want to pay any taxes or join the army. That means that Israel’s money and defense comes from non-orthodox Jews. You can bet that’s not going to sit well for very long especially with the way those Jews are multiplying.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@cain: You mean Israel’s far right wing nuts are American Republicans? How did that happen?
efgoldman
Except Israel is a parliamentary democracy
Bibi (any Prime Minister) can be thrown out by a vote of no confidence, or if a key small party pulls out of the coalition. Amber Asshole can only be removed by impeachment/trial or the 25th amendment.
Mike in NC
“Bye, bye Bibi” would be a damn good musical. Can we ask Mel Brooks to write it?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
I believe there are a couple of other ways…Dick Nixon’s exit is one and there’s always Divine Intervention.
rikyrah
Got my calendar, Cole?
kindness
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Karmic meteors?
NotMax
@efgoldman
Thank you. Mirrors almost exactly what was about to type.
Sab
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): That has been true for a generation. In the early 1990s Israelis used to joke that Bibi’s cabinet meetings were held in English to accomodate all the American Republican strategists attending.
Don’t know if true, but that’s how many Israelis saw it.
On the other hand, they kept electing Bibi.
GregB
May we all live to see the Axis of *Douchebags implode one by one.
Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, Orban, Assad, Mohammed Bin Salman..
HRA
The calendars arrived today, John. They are excellent.
The first time I saw the name Netanyahu was in a book I read on the raid in Entebbe. It was Bibi’s brother who went to save the hostages and was killed there. .
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
I got mine today too. Very happy!
Omnes Omnibus
@HRA: The Middle East might have been a very different place if the Bibi had been the brother who died.
raven
@HRA: Bohdi and Lil Bit look pretty good in their Driving Miss Daisy cart don’t they!
bobbo
Wait, so Bibi didn’t fire everyone investigating him?
HRA
Omnes Omnibus @21
I believe that would have been true as well.
getsmartin
@kindness: Spontaneous human combustion…
Major Major Major Major
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
You could certainly find a worse one-clause summary of Israeli politics.
some guy
@efgoldman:
Israel is an apartheid regime subjugating the local inhabitants.
PaulWartenberg
@Corner Stone:
I’m not sure. this could send some of the more moderate factions in his coalition to break from it, forcing a new election perhaps?
Corner Stone
@PaulWartenberg: I am not sure either. But when someone is approaching Ben Gurion lengths of staying in office…
HRA
Raven @22 I knew them right away. They look very good. :
?BillinGlendaleCA
@kindness: I was trying for a nice way of saying “he drops dead”.
Mary G
Maggie FTFNYT has a new scoop:
Raise your hand if you believe this. Anyone, Buehler?
rikyrah
@Mary G:
Hell NO???
Corner Stone
@Mary G: Ooh! Ooh! Me!Me!Me! Call on me!
JPL
@Mary G: How much does Cohen get paid by Trump? There could be an extra padding in his fee to take care of the shit Trump leaves behind. I’m on the I believe it side.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G: He’s writing a book in response to Fire and Fury. So is Jeanine Pirro. I imagine Reince and Corey and Spicey are all working on their version. Apparently the way to work your way back into the Beast’s favor is to show him a book proposal. With large font and lots of pictures, I’d wager.
efgoldman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I don’t believe in divine intervention – more’s the pity
And as his own allies in congress told him, Tricksie would have been impeached and likely convicted. He got out of town just ahead of the posse.
I thought of you when I read this. Wasn’t it you – or maybe M4 or both – who’s house is wired 16 ways to Sunsay?
efgoldman
@some guy:
Which has nothing whatever to do wit whether Netenyahu is a crook.
Just because the name “Israel” shows up in a blog post, it is NOT mandatory to go off on this tangent
efgoldman
@Mary G:
Suuuuure he did. And I’m JPMorgan
mai naem mobile
I don’t follow Israeli politics but partner the story I saw on the Twitter Machine is that Sheldon Adelson provided some important info regarding the bribes.
OT – also saw on Twitter that Michael Cohen is shopping a book. Hahahahaha. Guess they’re all abandoning Herr L’Orange anf trying to make Wolff kind of $$$. Live by the dollar loyalty, Die by the dollar loyalty .
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: don’t be silly, everything bad Israel may or may not have done to anybody ever is always a germane topic.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mary G:
Those pronouns are slightly ambiguous.
seaninclt
@mai naem mobile: of course Adelson did. He owns the paper that Netenyahu was willing to trash for good press. The only way that this moves forward against Netenyahu is if the pols pushing for it to happen have the backing of Adelson.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Shame about that nose, Mr. M.
:)
B.B.A.
Will they call new elections? If so, and Bibi wins again, then what?
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone: The only lesson Donald may learn from this is “I can get away with it, too!”
John Revolta
@Mary G: And the next month, Trump gets a bill for 130K for “office supplies”.
debbie
@B.B.A.:
Bribery will have been legitimized.
Corner Stone
@Villago Delenda Est: Trump is doing everything he can to model his presidency after Duterte, Erdogan, Bibi and Putin.
Anya
“If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemes will float by.” – a Native American Proverb.
President Obama is too classy to say it, so I will say it for him. It couldn’t have happened to a move deserving person. I hope his political future ends with this.
burnspbesq
@GregB:
You forgot Kaczynski. He’s another evil fucker.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
There was a guy who lived in the same dorm as me one year who named his evil little rat-dog Yoni, after the brother who died at Entebbe. He trained it not to accept treats unless he said they were kosher.
Steve in the ATL
@burnspbesq: that was at Duke, right? We didn’t have people that douchey at W&L.