Saturday, January 06, 2018

Corruption charges against Netanyahu

From Eyal:

"Both the current and the previous attorneys general (*) in Israel are personal Netanyahu picks - Yehuda Weinstein had represented Netanyahu as a defense attorney, and Dr. Avichai Mandelblit was cabinet secretary (who is not a minister, i.e. not in the government himself). There are wide-spread public allegations that Mandelblit is dragging his feet w.r.t. the Netanyahu corruption charges (**). In fact, for about a year now there have been demonstrations close to Attorney General 
Mandelblit's home in Petach Tiqva demanding he get on with the indictments. They refer to Mandelblit is "Mister 'But it is Shabat today, but it is Passover today'" - a.k.a. Mister Procrastination.

The Israeli right-wing is accusing the demonstrators - some of which are associated with the Israeli labor party - of not caring about corruption and merely hoping to achieve by legal means what they have failed to achieve electorally - a defeat of Netanyahu and supposedly a change of government.

Note that, on the other hand, Israeli authorities did not hesitate to charge Ahed Tamimi immediately, nor to quickly investigate the spokesperson of Breaking the Silence, Dean Yisacharof who had given 
public testimony about having physically abused a Palestinian during an darrest. The latter case, in fact, was hastily closed to allow the minister of justice to declare that Yisacharof had lied (and thus 
discredit Breaking the Silence). Unfortunately for the state, it was soon discovered that the state prosecution officers had completely mistaken which person it was that Yisacharof was referring to, and the Palestinian they questioned about Yisacharof did not even understand what the Hebrew document the investigators had made him sign. As this came to light thes state rushed to reopen the investigation.

So I guess all those theories about the relativity of time check out 
after all.

Eyal

(*) Actually it's not quite the attorney general. Israel has a prosecutor general, and an attorney above him/her which both serves the government, defending it in court, but also provides binding legal opinion regarding intended actions, so in a sense he is a legal supervisor for the government

(*) There are now at least four separate corruption cases:

Case 1000 - Gifts/bribes from Arnon Milchan and James Packer Case 2000 - Collusion with Yediot Aharonot publisher Noni Moses to get better coverage in exchange for reigning back Sheldon Adelson's freely-handed-out daily, Israel Hayom Case 3000 - Excessive submarine purchases involving high commission rates for Netanyahu's cousin, attorney David Shimron
Case 4000 - Collusion with the owner of Bezeq and the Walla news website, Shaul Allovich, to get better news and perhaps other kinds of support in exchange for consulting with Allovich befaure making regulatory changes, and perhaps the employ of Shlomo Filber, a man considered close to Allovich, as the general manager of the ministry of communications".