Court Gives Netanyahu Time Off to Greet Paraguayan President But Not to Conduct the War

Photo Credit: Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives for a hearing at the District Court in Jerusalem, May 17, 2022.

The Jerusalem District Court on Sunday accepted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request to postpone his testimony on Wednesday to 2:30 PM, to allow the PM to greet in the Knesset the President of Paraguay Santiago Peña, who will arrive in Israel that day on the occasion of moving his country’s embassy to Jerusalem.

The trial is held three times a week, a relatively fast pace for trials of this type. The reason for the unusually dense schedule is that someone at the state prosecution decided to include three cases in one indictment, and loaded up more than 300 prosecution witnesses (only 120 of whom showed up), producing tens of thousands of documents.

And still, the three-judge panel insisted that Netanyahu show up to testify promptly, even though he is also busy running Israel’s longest and most complex war.

Journalist Eli Zipori noted that in the last three months of the prosecution’s case, only 10 hearings out of 32 scheduled were held, because the prosecution failed to produce a sequence of prosecution witnesses, and therefore very large “holes” were created between testimonies that accumulated over about two months of hearings.

Also, in March 2023, two of the judges decided to take a month-long sabbatical each, and the hearings were canceled for the entire month. For some reason, no one argued that this was at the expense of the “public interest,” the way they dubbed Netanyahu’s request to postpone his testimony.

Last Thursday, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana sent an urgent letter to the Courts Administration, expressing his displeasure over the fact that the date for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to testify in his trial was set by the Courts Administration without consulting him.

The Knesset Speaker referred to Section 8 of the Knesset Members’ Immunity Law, according to which the Courts Administration must coordinate the dates for Knesset members’ testimonies with the Speaker, to avoid a situation in which one branch of government would interfere with the work of another branch.

One such violation had to do with President Peña’s visit, which Netanyahu would have been forced to miss because the visit coincided with his court testimony.

Meanwhile, ministers who are members of the political-security cabinet on Monday sent a letter to the court administration and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, demanding that Netanyahu’s testimony in his trial be postponed due to the security situation.

In their letter, the ministers demanded that a hearing be held on the matter before the judges of the Jerusalem District Court, with the participation of members of the National Security Agency staff, and warned that “anyone who ignores this serious warning may be found responsible for security failures and history will judge him for it,” and that “the current conduct constitutes a serious harm to the security of the state.”

Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who hired Gali Baharav-Miara in his role as Justice Minister in Naftali Bennett’s government, told the AG that she should agree to postpone Netanyahu’s testimony.

“As someone who sits in cabinet meetings, you are familiar with the security situation, including the recent dramatic developments in Syria,” he wrote her. “At this time, a heavy responsibility rests on the government and even more so on the prime minister.”

Saar, who did not sign the ministers’ letter, nevertheless argued that the prime minister’s request to give his testimony in a more limited timeframe, including only two days a week instead of three, was “reasonable.” According to him, the testimony should take place while paying attention to the “constraints of time and duty,” even though the prime minister himself has said in the past that holding the trial would not interfere with his performance as prime minister.