Report: State prosecutor says Netanyahu can’t form government under indictment

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1. Gantz: Prevent unnecessary and expensive elections

   “I am continuing my efforts to achieve a majority in the Knesset to prevent elections,” says Blue and White chairman.

   Benny Gantz
   Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz on Friday addressed in a Facebook post the indictments against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

   “Yesterday was a very sad evening for the State of Israel, including for me personally as someone who has known Netanyahu for years and worked with him. It is important that we all understand – the State of Israel has a law and every citizen is equal before it. I would like to back the law enforcement agencies today – continue to do your job fearlessly,” he wrote.

   “Back to the negotiations – we have less than three weeks left to try to prevent elections for the third time in a year,” he continued.

   “Even though I have returned the mandate, I am continuing my efforts to achieve a majority in the Knesset to prevent elections. In the negotiations I conducted, I was ready for concessions, but not for concessions on the values on the basis of which I decided to enter politics,” wrote Gantz.

   “Unfortunately, despite all my efforts to establish a broad and liberal unity government, Netanyahu refused to dismantle the immunity bloc he built. The bloc of Knesset members that is essential to Netanyahu harmed the very basic interests of Israeli citizens and the will of the voters,” he added.

   “I made the decisions in the negotiations after multiple consultations, first and foremost with my colleagues in the leadership of Blue and White – Yair [Lapid], Gabi [Ashkenazi] and Bogie [Ya’alon]. The decision that unity with Netanyahu cannot be reached under the current conditions was made by me.”

   “I have been in politics for almost a year, and am waiting for the moment when we stop dealing with what separates us and start dealing with what really interests the citizens of Israel – caring for the elderly, the health care system, the education of our children and of course – meeting the security challenges that lie ahead.”

   “I will do everything possible to reach this moment as soon as possible. I will do everything possible to try and prevent unnecessary and expensive elections,” concluded Gantz.

2. A couple of commentators on Israpundit have asked why a third election would be bad. Here is a description of why Israel needs a function government now and not some time in the future, even though prospects for this are bleak. Article is an appeal to MKs to act now with 19 days left before new elections become automatic.

   Here are some practical and concrete reasons not to let a third election happen.
   Israel has a massive, yawning budget deficit that needs to be dealt with by passing an actual state budget, instead of the piecemeal funding transfers the Knesset Finance Committee has had to deal with every week.
   Meanwhile, the expansion of the health basket, the selection of medications provided by our socialized medicine system, has been delayed, keeping people from receiving life-saving treatments.

   Netanyahu, it’s time to step down – comment
   Social services are falling apart. Without enough funding to keep open battered women’s shelters, homes for teenage runaways and other important institutions, our weakest citizens are at risk.
   Reforms in the education system can’t be renewed, such as the “holiday schools,” in-school programming during Hanukkah, which is a week of vacation from classes but not from work for most parents. Children with severe allergies won’t be able to have a designated aide in preschools to make sure they don’t accidentally come into contact with whatever triggers a life-threatening response.
   On top of the domestic issues that the political paralysis has exacerbated, we have the security situation.
   Iran is growing emboldened, launching attacks at us from over the Syrian border. Hezbollah is as strong as ever. Terrorists in Gaza have rained hundreds of rockets down on us in the past year, along with other flaming projectiles over the border fence.
   As last week’s Operation Black Belt showed, Israel can defend itself even without a functioning government, and even take initiative instead of just responding. But the operation came with a bitter taste, with more and more politicians raising questions about the timing and whether it benefits one political side or another.
   And only a stable government can take the kinds of decisive action Israel needs to improve the situation for residents of the South.
   Now is the time for MKs to do what it takes to turn the situation around. Many parties will have to make compromises for a new government to be formed. We get it, you stood your ground for the past seven months. Keeping promises to voters is commendable, but not at the expense of keeping the whole country in limbo for four more months until another election.
   Find the places where you can be flexible. Show that you are negotiating in good faith, and the other side ought to respond in kind.
   You have 19 more days to get 61 of you to sign a piece of paper supporting one candidate and to give that paper to President Reuven Rivlin so we can have some stability and normality here in Israel. Your country needs you to do better than you have been doing since April. Form a government and prevent a third election.

   Full Article by Yacov Katz at https://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/To-all-120-members-of-Knesset-608640

3. I believe that the charges against Netanyahu are outrageous politically motivated frauds and frame-ups. No politician in Israel or any other democratic company has ever been indicted for trading support for changes in government regulations or laws that were favorable to certain private business interests, in return for political support –but not money or financially valuable goods and services–from these business interests.. This has always been accepted as a matter of course that that is how politics works in all democratic countries. Bribery has always been defined as payment to a politician that has monetary or other material value, not “payment” of political support.

   Further problems with these indictments (“4000”) and (“2000”): Bibi didn’t deliver on any promises he made to these business owners, and didn’t even have the power to deliver on them. The decisions that they desired needed the approval of middle-level civil servants, who were not obligated to obey orders from elected politicians, but had independant governmental authority. Bibi did ask a bureaucrat in one case (4000, I think), to enact the regulatory changes requested by the Bezel corporation owner. But instead the bureaucrat in question enacted completely different regulatory changes, which cost the company several billion dollars. In the “2000” case, Bibi never supported the legislation desired by the publisher of Maariv, and in fact opposed the legislation, which was defeated by the Knesset.(Maariv is now owned by the Jerusalem Post, which may partially explain why the Post’s coverage of the allegations against Bibi, based on illegal prosecution leaksi, has been particularly vicious). Bibi was thus charged with accepting “bribes” for a very small amount of relatively favorable news coverage from some publications that remained overwhelmingly hostile to him, and no favorable coverage at all from one of those publications (Ma’ariv), in return for government regulatory benefits that he never delivered.

   Surely a corrupt politician could have obtained more than this for his services, and have actually delivered some benefits to the alleged bribers in return.

   The real corruption in these two cases was the deliberate use of prosecutorial power to frame a politician on trumped-up (no pun intended) charges, because they wanted him out of office, and perhaps financially ruined and put in prison, because they disagreed with his policies. And what were Bibi’s policies that they disagreed with? They found him much too sympathetic to the “settlers,” allowed some settlement (not much) in the “occupied” territories, did not support as many expulsions of settlers from their homes, and destruction of their homes, and destruction of entire settlements, as the “left” desired; failed to characterize the disputed territories as “occupied:” did not prevent all reprisal raids against the Palestinian terrorists that might have caused some Arab civilian casualties.
   And they hated him for his lack of verbal support for the left’s policies, even though he dutifully complied with all court orders based on these anti-settler, pro-Palestinian policies. Infamous judicial-prosecutorial corruption of the very worst possible kind; not acceptance of bribes by judges, but abuse of their powers in pursuit of political objectives.