Netanyahu's trial returns: Bigger and more dramatic than ever

The drama of the first sitting prime minister to testify in a public corruption trial could take over the country’s narrative for the next month, or months.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB NOVEMBER 29, 2024 13:54

Benjamin Netanyahu. (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/Jerusalem Post)

Nothing is ever completely stable in politics.

But from many perspectives, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be said to be in his strongest position since March 2023 when he took a big political hit over the judicial overhaul, followed by another hit for being in charge of the country during Hamas’s invasion on Oct. 7, 2023.

And then comes the return of his public corruption trial (that’s right, it has been on pause but never stopped) with a vengeance and Cases 1000 (Illegal Gifts), 2000 (attempted Media Bribery Yediot Aharonot-Yisrael Hayom), and 4000 (Media Bribery Bezeq-Walla), with the prime minister getting forced onto the witness stand.

The drama of the first sitting prime minister to testify in a public corruption trial – seven years after the investigations started – could take over the country’s narrative for the next month, or months, sidelining what the master messenger wants the national story to be.

It could undo all of Netanyahu’s victories over Hamas, Hezbollah, and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant; and his securing Gideon Sa’ar’s support to make his coalition harder to topple.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with The Jerusalem Post. (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

Where do things stand with Netanyahu’s trial?

Technically, the investigations began in 2017; but it really all started with an indictment in January 2020, not getting to hear witnesses until April 2021 due to COVID-19, and then experiencing numerous delays since this past summer because of the war.

First of all, Jerusalem District Court President Judge Rivkah Friedman Feldman – who convicted former prime minister Ehud Olmert of corruption around a decade ago – rejected three Netanyahu postponement requests after granting his initial request to delay from the summer until December 2, due to the war. 

On Tuesday, Friedman Feldman finally gave the prime minister a one-week reprieve to December 10 – but one week does not really give Netanyahu any relief.

So, while the trial has been inching forward, it is finally going to start to move again, come hell or high water (though the defense case probably will not close before the end of 2025 or even the end of 2026, and the closing arguments and expected appeal will draw it out even more).

In the summer, the prosecution concluded its side of the case. Next up is the defense’s side, starting with the historic testimony and cross-examination of Netanyahu – the first time a sitting prime minister will testify in a criminal case. 

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Olmert resigned as prime minister before his indictment, testimony, conviction, and eventual imprisonment.

Prosecution case highlights

The highlights of the prosecution case from a legal perspective have been the testimony of former Walla CEO Ilan Yeshua; the text messages between Yeshua and former Bezeq and Walla owner Shaul Elovitch, a line of former Walla reporters, former top aides to Netanyahu Nir Hefetz, Shlomo Filber, and Ari Harow, former Communications Ministry officials, such as former director-general Avi Berger, Hadas Klein, and Arnon Milchan; text messages from former Netanyahu aide Zev Rubinstein, former Netanyahu aide and cousin David Shimron, and a variety of police interrogators, most notably Yoav Telem and Eli Asiag.

Some other political highlights in the case – the drama of which has grabbed the country’s attention now and then – even if their impact on the legal outcome was more minor, included testimony from former prime minister Yair Lapid, former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, sitting Justice Minister Yariv Levin, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, and former Israeli ambassador to the United States Gilad Erdan. 

Former US secretary of state John Kerry only avoided testifying because the US government refused Israel’s request to involve him in the trial.

Of all of these massive numbers of witnesses and developments, the most important witnesses, legally speaking, have been Hefetz and Filber in Case 4000 – both formerly very close to Netanyahu and both of whom received immunity in exchange for pointing the finger at their former boss of many years; and Hadas Klein in Case 1000 – the key witness regarding alleged illegal gifts to Milchan and tycoon James Packer.

Case 1000

Case 1000 is where everything began, and it may be where Netanyahu is in most danger of a conviction, even if the charges are less sensational.

Netanyahu allegedly received NIS 267,254 ($75,800) in cigars and NIS 184,448 ($52,300) worth of champagne from billionaire Milchan between 2011 and 2016. 

The original indictment said that Sara Netanyahu had allegedly received NIS 10,900 ($3,100) worth of jewelry from him in the same period, although new allegations push that number up to over $45,000. 

Netanyahu and his family also allegedly received another NIS 229,174 ($65,000) in champagne and cigars from Milchan’s associate, Australian billionaire Packer, between 2014 and 2016.

Klein has been the key witness to connect the dots between these former tycoon allies of Netanyahu and the alleged illegal gifts in Case 1000.

Case 4000

Case 4000 was originally the most threatening case with the most serious charge – bribery – but it has faced lots of problems.

In Case 4000, Hefetz assisted the prosecution and remained more solid than expected under cross-examination; while Filber upset the prosecution so much that they declared him a hostile witness, ended his immunity deal, and likely plan to prosecute him in the future.

Hefetz provided the prosecution’s narrative regarding allegations against Netanyahu on the Walla side of the case: that the prime minister used Elovitch and Yeshua to manipulate coverage of him and his political rivals in around 300 instances.

The defense managed to challenge some of the instances and show that Netanyahu’s rivals sometimes also played games manipulating coverage of themselves; but if the court accepts even a majority of the instances, the volume of coverage manipulation by the prime minister would drown out what his rivals have managed to achieve.

Filber was supposed to close the circle by providing the prosecution narrative against Netanyahu on the Bezeq side, namely that he allegedly used his powers over communications policies to benefit Bezeq to the tune of hundreds of millions of shekels – or more.

Given that Elovitch owned both Bezeq and Walla, Netanyahu would have been benefiting Elovitch’s right hand so that Elovitch could essentially benefit Netanyahu with his left hand.

Former Communications Ministry director-general Berger has testified that he repeatedly stuck to his guns on the conditions for a YES-Bezeq merger, also benefiting Elovitch’s EUROCOM, and ignored Netanyahu’s messengers, who he said were advocating problematic policies.

The prosecution has presented evidence that this made Bezeq, Walla, and EUROCOM owner Elovitch furious, a sentiment which he asked Hefetz to pass on to the then-prime minister.

Former top Netanyahu aide turned state’s witness, Shlomo Filber, goes rogue against prosecution

Following Hefetz’s passing the message on to Netanyahu, Filber was expected to testify that on May 17, 2015, as soon as Netanyahu formed a new government, he fired Berger and replaced him with Filber to carry out Elovitch’s wishes regarding Bezeq. 

Filber was also supposed to testify that shortly after, on June 7, 2015, he was called to a special meeting with the prime minister, during which the scheme was hatched.

But Filber ended up calling into doubt the date of the meeting, as well as whether Netanyahu’s instructions to him were merely designed to help Elovitch or were also good policy.

If they were also good policy, then much of Case 4000, certainly the most serious and jail-worthy bribery charge, falls apart.

The court suggests a plea deal

Because Filber’s “rogue” testimony derailed portions of the prosecution’s case, the judges called the sides into their chambers in June 2023 and suggested a plea deal.

The prosecution never took the offer seriously, so we don’t know what those negotiations would have looked like. 

But it appears that the judges wanted the state to move in the direction of dropping the bribery charge from Case 4000, dropping Case 2000 entirely regarding Netanyahu, and either having the defense agree to one minor conviction of breach of trust in Case 1000 or two such minor convictions, the second being in Case 4000.

The bottom line to all of this would also have likely been a deal not to sentence Netanyahu with a finding of moral turpitude, which would have kept him out of jail and cleared the way for him to continue as prime minister.

The judge seemed to be considering this scenario – not only because Filber’s testimony for the prosecution was significantly derailed. There are also several other reasons.

Other problems for the prosecution

Though a majority of Communications Ministry officials backed the prosecution’s case, multiple officials took Netanyahu’s side, saying that his pushing to help Bezeq was not only good for Elovitch but also good policy. 

And criminal law cases are not won by 51% or even 60% of the evidence but by more like 90%. Regardless of whether the prosecution is right or not about Netanyahu, if they cannot prove their case with 90% certainty in court, they lose.

Case 2000, the Yediot Ahronot-Yisrael Hayom affair, has been viewed as weak from the start. 

Former attorney-general Avichai Mandelblit just barely filed that indictment – and again, only under pressure from the prosecution team. Winning an attempted media bribery case – meaning the bribery never happened – is even harder than winning a media bribery case, with only one such prior case in Israeli legal history.

That left Case 1000 as probably the strongest case against Netanyahu due to testimony by Milchan and his aide Hadas Kline. 

But there were also holes in this case, since Milchan, at least at times, seems to have given Netanyahu gifts, not for anything concrete but mostly just to get to be around a prime minister.

Still, let’s say the prosecution wins a conviction in Case 1000. That alone would probably not lead to jail time or end Netanyahu’s career in politics.

In such a case, the prosecution’s chances of getting a better verdict than it could have received in a plea deal that the court suggested in mid-2023 would appear to be low.

Why didn’t the prosecution take the court-suggested deal?

In that case, why didn’t the prosecution take the win? The first conviction of a sitting prime minister who had claimed as his mantra “There was nothing and there will be nothing.” 

First, it is quite possible that such a deal would have been more likely had Netanyahu attacked the prosecution less. 

Yet, after all of the attacks made this case into a bellwether for whether the prosecution is competent and politicized or not, a plea deal before Netanyahu’s cross-examination became highly unlikely, whether the judges thought it would be “for the good of the country” or not.But that is only part of the story.

The truth is that there is still a very real possibility that the prosecution could convict Netanyahu of bribery in Case 4000 or of breach of trust in Cases 1000 and 4000, without any deal – which could lead to jail time or ending his political career, or both.

Will Netanyahu be his own worst enemy as in the case of Olmert?

The most important piece in all this is Netanyahu’s testimony and his cross-examination by the prosecution.

Basically, the prosecution has proven that Hefetz and Filber each undertook potentially criminal actions which could be separate parts of a media bribery scheme. 

What Netanyahu has been counting on, to beat back the bribery charge, is that he can cause the judges to doubt whether he knew what they were trying to do or realized that his or their actions could be interpreted as a crime.

In determining this issue for the judges, Netanyahu’s appearance could be decisive.

In the Holyland trial a decade ago, another prime minister, Olmert, thought that he was so erudite and such a fantastic spin doctor that his testimony would help him tank the public corruption trial against him.

As it turned out, this made Olmert his own worst enemy. 

When one presents oneself as the smartest person in the room, with a condescending comeback to every single move by the prosecution and barely hiding one’s indignation with the court for holding the proceedings, it suddenly becomes harder to convince the judge that one was ignorant of all the wrongdoing surrounding one. 

Therefore, Olmert’s testimony was not always as good as his lawyers’ arguments; sometimes he went too far and got too fancy in his arguments and denials.

At one point, that court’s judge, David Rozen, even advised him to leave legal arguments to his lawyers and only discuss his personal knowledge. 

Ultimately, Olmert’s fancy maneuvers and explanations convinced Rozen that his claim – that he did not know about any of the money being paid to his bureau chief, driver, and brother Yossi Olmert for causes as diverse as paying off debts and helping with his elections campaigns – was not credible. 

This helped the prosecution chip away at Olmert’s credibility in order to frame him as a pretender who concocted all kinds of fake alibis, attempting to separate himself from those doing his dirty work, such as corruption middleman Shmuel Duchner.

Olmert shot himself in the foot again at his sentencing, lecturing the court for having convicted him and yelling that he had done nothing wrong, while banging his fist repeatedly on the witness stand as if he were holding a press conference. 

Had Olmert shown true remorse, Rozen might have treated him leniently, but one could see Rozen’s face transform into a steely, determined look as Olmert continued to tear into his verdict. 

Eschewing leniency, Rozen threw the book at Olmert and handed down a multi-year jail sentence.

Netanyahu thinks he is at least as talented a spin doctor as Olmert, if not more.

In multiple civil defamation cases where The Jerusalem Post has seen Netanyahu testify, he has been unable to avoid speaking condescendingly to the lawyers, judge, and media in the room.

But in those cases, only civil damages were at stake. Here, if Netanyahu gets too fancy, he could seize defeat from the jaws of his potential victory.

This was part of what the prosecution told the court in the summer of 2023 when it rejected a plea deal more on the prime minister’s terms.

Other wins for the prosecution since summer 2023

There have been other developments since last summer, which the prosecution believes have improved its case.

The prosecution brought additional Walla witnesses to boost its evidence in Case 4000: Avner Borochov, Talia Ovadiah, and Yinon Maagal. It also called Shimron, whom even the judges had openly called out for inconsistencies in his defense of himself and of Netanyahu.

For example, Shimron testified that he had not drafted a document on which his name had been signed; he claimed that Netanyahu and Elovitch were not close friends in Case 4000 when the prime minister was trying to avoid being disqualified from helping Elovitch because of conflict-of-interest claims against the premier due to the two being close. 

Further, Shimron testified that he did not know who had drafted the document, all of which signals more of a conspiracy to cover up the Netanyahu-Elovitch relationship at the heart of the media bribery allegations.

Moreover, the prosecution believes the defense may fall into some of its own traps.

During the prosecution’s arguments in Case 1000, the defense attacked the prosecution for failing to call Packer as a witness in the alleged illegal gifts case. 

The defense claimed that the prosecution did not call Packer because he would undermine its case. Clearly, calling Packer would have been difficult – not only because he lives in Australia and could have resisted testifying in a foreign country (Israel) when he is not a defendant but also because he spends significant periods sailing around the world on a yacht, and his bipolar disorder makes him an unstable witness.

By not calling Packer, the prosecution can now put pressure on the defense to call him. 

And if the defense does not, the prosecution can then say that the defense had been bluffing with its threats that Packer would help it and was afraid of what he might say.

Additional evidence

There were also additional small pieces of evidence that the prosecution has added, such as Pardo’s testimony that Milchan never had any serious role in the Mossad. 

This testimony served to undermine Netanyahu’s alibi that he tried to help Milchan because of some unspecified Mossad and national security work he had been doing for Israel – as opposed to in order to keep getting expensive gifts from him.

Also, the prosecution’s calling of Telem and Aslag completed the picture of the police’s perception of Netanyahu and of all the other key witnesses, in real time, when they had to respond to the evidence against them without being as well prepared with potential alibis.

And after all that, the prosecution has so much testimony from Filber against Netanyahu from the second stage of police interrogations and from part of the court testimony, that it has a shot to convince the judges that this was the truth – and that Filber was lying in his earliest police denials and latest court denial.

In addition, Netanyahu’s legal team took a major hit in January 2024, when Boaz Ben Tzur, who had represented him in Case 4000 – and is considered one of the elders of the entire legal profession – resigned from the prime minister’s legal team.

Another Netanyahu lawyer, Amit Hadad, who managed the defense for Cases 1000 and 2000, is known as formidable and a maverick who can hold his own. 

However, Hadad, close to the age of 40, has decades less experience than Ben Tzur, who is closing in on 65. 

Moreover, while Hadad, with his notable charisma, is a great showman and a media hit, Ben Tzur has appeared to command more respect from the judges in the courtroom.

All of this will come to a head on December 10 when “Defendant No. 1” in court index number 67104-01-20 – aka Benjamin Netanyahu – finally takes the stand, and the drama distracts the country for a period of time from its longest war since 1949.