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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Netanyahu Indicted

Netanyahu Indicted

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I feel like this is the eleventyfirst time he has been indicted, and yet he is still Prime Minister, but here is the report:

Israel’s attorney general has filed a formal indictment in court against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It came after Mr Netanyahu withdrew a request for parliamentary immunity from prosecution on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in connection with three separate cases.

He has denied any wrongdoing.

The Israeli parliament had been due to open a debate on the immunity request on Tuesday. But Mr Netanyahu said he would not have got a fair hearing.

He also criticised opponents for going ahead with the debate when US President Donald Trump was due to unveil his long-awaited Middle East peace plan.

On Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu will fly to Moscow to brief Russian President Vladimir Putin on the plan, Israeli officials said.

He’ll skate. No one powerful ever pays a price for anything.

Reader Interactions

22Comments

  1. 1.

    Joey Maloney

    Bibi is breaking new ground by being indicted while still in office, but he wouldn’t be the first Israeli PM to do time for corruption.

  2. 2.

    Shalimar

    Is Trump’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan an international version of Infrastructure Week?  Convenient that it was timed to get Netanyahu out of facing criminal charges.  I wonder if they will even bother with it now.

  3. 3.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    He’ll skate. No one powerful ever pays a price for anything.

    If everybody believes that, then the powerful will never pay a price, because nobody will demand it in the first place. Look at other countries. It has taken riots and massive protests sometimes to get the politically powerful to be punished for their actions, but they sometimes were. Ukraine is a great recent example of this happening.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    @Shalimar: The “plan” will never exist as anything beyond a plan. There’s no reason at all for the Palestinians to even pretend to take it seriously, for starters.

  5. 5.

    Shalimar

    @dmsilev: That has been my impression too.  Buy-in from Saudi Arabians looking for profit in the Sinai makes no difference if you don’t even include Palestinians in the discussions.

    I do find it fascinating that Netanahu is openly acting as a go-between for Trump and Putin.  Is Trump ok with this?  Or is he whining that he doesn’t get to brief Putin personally on the plan?

  6. 6.

    PenAndKey

    He’ll skate. No one powerful ever pays a price for anything.

    Hell, the fact he’s still PM could tell us that. Didn’t the Knesset dissolve itself and force a second election rather than let his opponent form a government last year when the Likud party lost the first one?

    I mean, yay for him knowing his immunity request would get the axe since his party doesn’t control parliament, but I’ll save the party for after he actually gets the boot. Even if I, personally, think Israel should know better than to keep a guy who runs to Russia to update them after getting indicted by his own AG.

  9. 9.

    Patricia Kayden

    Wow!  So in Israel, politicians actually get penalized for their misconduct.  Good to know that being head of state doesn’t protect Netanyahu.  Perhaps Trump can pardon him.  /s

  10. 10.

    Another Scott

    This morning Razia Iqbal of the BBC did an excellent interview with a former US diplomat (I didn’t catch his name) who worked under Republican and Democratic administrations on various peace plans.  He was scathing on what’s been rumored to be in this “plan”.  He said he told Jared the first time that he met him (roughly): “You can’t solve the problem.  But you can make it much, much worse.”

    No doubt that Jared will succeed in doing so…

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  12. 12.

    msb

    He’ll skate.

    Several prominent Israeli politicians (including a recent President IIRC) have been convicted and served time. My concerns is that so many of them get indicted  – this level of corruption is bad news.

  13. 13.

    Barbara

    I have not been following closely, but I assume Netanyahu withdrew his petition either because he knew it would not succeed, or it would make him even worse off politically (e.g., lose possible coalition partners) or both.

  14. 14.

    chopper

    @Another Scott:

    even the ‘best’ deal the palestinians have been offered has been pretty shitty on its face, but i doubt anybody with a few brain cells to rub together thinks this one is going to be anything other than pure garbage.

  15. 15.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I feel like this is the eleventyfirst time he has been indicted, and yet he is still Prime Minister

    No, this is the first time.  The Israeli legal process goes through stages (like ours, really) and it has finally gotten to a formal charge.  The previous step you heard was ‘recommendation for indictment.’  Trust me, Bibi is not happy and has been flailing to prevent this from happening.

  16. 16.

    Gravenstone

    @Shalimar: Did no one else do a double take about the newly indicted Netanyahu visiting Putin? Not saying it’s likely, but the potential for him to skip out is now non-zero.

  17. 17.

    Yutsano

    @Gravenstone: I’m too lazy to look it up, but I believe Israel and Russia have an extradition treaty. It would make sense considering the large number of Israelis of Russian origin.

    And for the OP: forgive me while I giggle madly. This has SOOO got to burn Bibi in the nickers.

  18. 18.

    El Cruzado

    He’ll skate. No one powerful ever pays a price for anything.

    World may not be fair but Netanyahu has a decades long career of making real enemies and friends of circumstances. At some point, possibly already, there’ll be too much power on the side of getting rid of him.

  19. 19.

    BC in Illinois

    From Sen. Chris Murphy, on Twitter:

    I met this morning at the White House with Jared Kushner and Ambassador Friedman. I appreciate the meeting. I gave them my unvarnished opinion on their so-called “peace plan”, which in reality is a total abandonment of decades of U.S. Middle East policy.

    1/ This plan was negotiated with no one but the Israelis, and thus it’s not a peace plan at all. Peace can only be achieved through agreement between Israel and the Palestinian people. By setting these new terms, it makes it harder for Israel to compromise later.

    2/ Any claim that this plan envisions a Palestinian state is just false. The plan allows Israel to control all security matters inside the Palestinian “state”, and thus it’s not a state at all.

    3/ The unilateral annexation of the Jordan River valley and existing settlements, deemed illegal under U.S. and international law, will set back the peace process decades. And it risks real violence and massive destabilization inside places like Jordan.

    4/ I remain a devoted supporter of Israel and our commitment to their security and defense. But this proposal compromises the long term security of both Israel and the United States. That’s why I oppose it.

    This whole thing is a photo-op for two fugitives from justice.

    That Netanyahu goes from here to Putin is somehow fitting.

  20. 20.

    Anya

    @BC in Illinois: I don’t see the EU or even rogue UK endorsing this. I think there will be a lot of opposition. I’ve read somewhere that Jordan was not consulted and they feel boxed in. This might also jeopardize Israel’s relationship with friendly Arab countries like Jordan and Morocco and probably Egypt. I don’t see even Egypt’s despotic regime supporting this. But MbA will probably support it in exchange for the US looking the other way when it comes to his crimes.

  21. 21.

    PaulWartenberg

    The “trump peace plan” has been issued and it’s a total gift to Netanyahu and the “Fck Palestinians” brigade.

    https://www.vox.com/2020/1/28/21100068/trump-peace-plan-israel-palestine-netanyahu-gantz

    But it essentially ignores all of the Palestinians’ desires, as the plan was drafted with no input from the Palestinian side. It’s pretty hard to make a historic deal when one side isn’t part of the negotiations.

    Even so, the Trump administration clearly believes its peace plan is ready for primetime and released the document with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. It’s a moment that crystallizes just how far the US has gone to align itself with Israel’s right wing under Trump, and how little the president has cared about actually crafting a serious, feasible peace deal…

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