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<div class="gmail-inner-article-top"><h1 class="gmail-">Netanyahu’s trial: corruption, war crimes, and an Israel in crisis</h1><p class="gmail-">Benjamin
Netanyahu’s corruption trial unfolds against a backdrop of bribery and
fraud allegations, international war crimes charges, domestic scandals,
and mounting global condemnation – all while he continues to fuel
devastating wars with no end in sight.</p><div class="gmail-another-name"><i><img src="https://the-cradle-media.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/small-on-screen.png" alt=""></i><p><a href="https://thecradle.co/authors/a-cradle-correspondent-117" style="color:rgb(164,4,4)">A Cradle Correspondent</a></p></div><div class="gmail-another-name" style="margin-top:16px"><p><span style="color:rgb(84,88,94)">DEC 11, 2024 -<font size="1"> </font></span><font size="1"><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahus-trial-corruption-war-crimes-and-an-israel-in-crisis">https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahus-trial-corruption-war-crimes-and-an-israel-in-crisis</a></font></p></div></div><div class="gmail-inner-article-img"><img src="https://thecradle-main.oss-eu-central-1.aliyuncs.com/public/articles/435e0d7a-b7e2-11ef-8456-00163e02c055.jpeg" alt=""><img src="cid:ii_m4ki6jdp0" alt="435e0d7a-b7e2-11ef-8456-00163e02c055.jpeg" width="468" height="221"><br><span>Photo Credit: The Cradle</span></div><div class="gmail-inner-article-content"><div class="gmail-row"><div class="gmail-col-md-8 gmail-col-sm-7"><div class="gmail-article-content"><span><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s entrance into a Tel Aviv courtroom
yesterday was anything but understated. Facing trial as the first
sitting prime minister prosecuted for corruption, Netanyahu seized the
moment to brand his ordeal a “</span><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahu-calls-corruption-trial-a-witch-hunt-in-first-testimony"><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">witch-hunt</span></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">.”
Outside the courthouse, tensions simmered as some 100 protesters
gathered, blaming him for the deaths of Israeli war prisoners in Gaza,
while an equal number of staunch supporters faced them across a police
barrier.</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">The embattled
premier, set to testify over three days before facing cross-examination,
continues to vigorously deny attempts to evade trial since his 2019
indictment on </span><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/top-israeli-court-rejects-netanyahus-request-to-delay-criminal-trial"><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">charges</span></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr"> of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. </span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Accused
of accepting gifts from wealthy businessmen and granting favors to
media moguls in exchange for positive coverage, Netanyahu had ignored
his lawyer’s advice to step away from politics at the time.</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Declaring
on the eve of his hearing that he had “waited eight years for this
moment to say the truth as [he] remember[s] it,” Netanyahu launched a
preemptive attack on the judiciary, police, and media in a televised
press conference on Monday. </span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr"><strong>Years of political ploys to evade justice</strong></span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">His
critics, however, swiftly countered. Opposition leader Yair Lapid
condemned Netanyahu’s self-serving focus amid mounting war casualties,
calling his press conference “a shameful collection of lies.” Lapid
accused Netanyahu of deploying “every trick possible” in his delay
tactic to avoid facing justice, saying the prime minister had
prioritized </span><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles-id/13848"><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">personal survival</span></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">
over the country’s security and stability. He even blamed him for the 7
October Palestinian resistance's Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, “the
[subsequent] war, and the fact that the kidnapped people have not yet
returned."</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">For nearly five
years, Netanyahu maneuvered to postpone this judicial reckoning, citing
COVID-19 disruptions, procedural delays, and political gridlock during
repeated elections as reasons to delay the hearings. After securing a
hardline coalition in December 2022, he intensified efforts to undermine
and politicize the judiciary system, proposing “reforms” that sparked </span><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/protests-against-netanyahus-judicial-reform-intensify-ahead-of-vote"><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">mass protests</span></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr"> throughout 2023. </span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Those
protests dwindled only after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, when Netanyahu’s
response – an unprecedented and brutal military campaign – rightfully
drew accusations of genocide and war crimes from the </span><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/icc-issues-arrest-warrants-for-netanyahu-gallant-over-gaza-war-crimes"><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">International Criminal Court</span></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">
(ICC). By the time he entered the underground, secured courtroom, the
prime minister was under mounting pressure at home and abroad. </span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Together
with his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, he faces the allegations
of war crimes – the first of their kind within the western alliance of
states - along with the repercussions of a collapsing economy and the
mass "displacement" of settlers in the north due to Hezbollah’s early
involvement in the regional conflict.</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">But
domestic and international pressure had escalated so much that
Netanyahu ran out of excuses by the time he attended yesterday’s hearing
to spin his side of the story in Tel Aviv. </span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">The
Israeli prime minister walked into the courtroom with an ICC arrest
warrant hanging over his head for war crimes in Gaza, and a broad
international consensus that Israel is guilty of apartheid and genocide
that has left nearly </span><a href="https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/site/lang__en/1405/default.aspx?lang=en"><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">45,000 Palestinians killed</span></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">, the majority of them women and children. </span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Yet, of more concern to Israelis has been the fleeing of nearly </span><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles-id/23976"><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">half a million</span></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">
Israeli Jews from the occupation state, the potentially permanent
displacement of a quarter of a million from the Gaza and Lebanese border
since October 2023, tens of billions of dollars in economic losses, and
the shuttering of up to </span><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles-id/25882"><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">60,000 businesses</span></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr"> in 15 months of war.</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr"><strong>Domestic scandals and ‘The Bibi Files’</strong></span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Further
tarnishing Netanyahu’s credibility is a recent security scandal
involving his aide, Eli Feldstein, who leaked – or fabricated – a
classified intelligence document to Germany's </span><i><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Bild</span></i><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr"> newspaper and the UK's </span><i><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Jewish Chronicle</span></i><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">.</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Ostensibly,
its aim was to seed in the public's mind that Hamas' late commander
Yahya Sinwar planned to smuggle Israeli prisoners out of the Gaza Strip –
information which Netanyahu would then use to convince Israelis that
unless their army remain entrenched on the Philadelphi Corridor along
the Gaza–Egypt border, the captives could end up in the Sinai or “pop up
in Iran or Yemen.”</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">When Israeli authorities arrested </span><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahu-aide-arrested-over-intel-leak-used-to-sabotage-gaza-ceasefire"><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Feldstein and four others</span></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">
in connection with the leaks last month, Lapid accused the prime
minister’s office of leaking “faked secret documents to torpedo the
possibility of a hostage deal – to shape a public opinion influence
operation against the hostages’ families.”</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Israeli media reported on 3 December that Feldstein told police he had </span><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles-id/27943"><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">notified Netanyahu</span></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr"> of the document two days before he leaked it to </span><i><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Bild</span></i><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">. </span>Feldstein's lawyer, Oded Savoray, went even further, saying that Netanyahu was <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/netanyahu-knew-all-along-israeli-government-staffer-reveals-all/">aware</a> of both documents and the plan to leak them.<span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr"> </span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Savoray
accused the prime minister of “shirking responsibility for an event he
caused” and declared that Feldstein would no longer remain silent over
the snowballing scandal. The lawyer told Israel's Broadcasting
Corporation (KAN) that “there was a stage in the investigation where he
[Feldstein] decided to stop taking the fall for the prime minister and
his office.”</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Adding to Netanyahu's woes, the banned documentary </span><a href="https://time.com/7200159/the-bibi-files-documentary-police-interrogation-netanyahu-corruption-trial/"><i><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">The Bibi Files</span></i></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">
will be premiered during his trial, exposing raw interrogation footage
from 2019, scathing accounts of his self-serving leadership, and the
corrosive influence of his wife Sara and their son Yair on the prime
minister's decision-making. </span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr"><strong>Personal survival over state stability </strong></span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">The film’s director, </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm1Jw3wpb4E"><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Alexis Bloom</span></a><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">,
has indicated on several occasions that the policies of Netanyahu – the
longest-serving Israeli prime minister in the state's short history –
are driven by personal interests and “his determination to avoid
prosecution and trial on corruption charges that could result in
imprisonment,” adding that “this could explain many of his political
decisions, maneuvers, and war.”</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Echoing
his opponents' criticisms, she acknowledged that his ruling coalition
and “primary motivation of governance is protecting Netanyahu's personal
interest,” including continuing and expanding the Gaza war on multiple
fronts “to enable his own political survival.”</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">The
film includes testimony from prominent Israeli politicians,
journalists, and close friends who describe Netanyahu as being “an
architect of chaos” and say that he “survives in a state of war, in a
state of instability.” Former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who himself
had resigned before his prosecution in Israeli courts, is heard in the
documentary film saying that by resisting his lawyer's advice to resign,
Netanyahu “was challenging the system. He said, ‘No, I’m above, I’m
beyond. No one can touch me.'” In doing so, Netanyahu designed and
established the most far-right and racist government in the existence of
Israel – for the sole purpose of clinging to power. </span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">As Netanyahu faces his legal battles, </span><i><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">The Bibi Files</span></i><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr"> captures a stark portrait of a leader accused of prioritizing personal survival over the future of the state. </span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" dir="ltr">Whether
this trial marks a turning point for Israel or becomes yet another
chapter in Netanyahu’s polarizing legacy remains uncertain. What is
clear, however, is that the political and social fractures he has
deepened may take far longer to heal than his time on the stand.</span></p></span></div></div></div></div>
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