Netanyahu on trial in Israel’s bizarre yet fascinating coalition
Benjamin Netanyahu capped off the first week of his fifth premiership of Israel by a barnstorming performance in the Jerusalem district court building. At the end of last week, on 24 May, Israel’s Prime Minister was about to go into court room 317 to stand charges of fraud, corruption and breach of trust. Flanked by faithful supporters from his Likud bloc, suitably be-masked against coronavirus, he let loose a tirade against all those enemies, real and imagined, that had brought him to this place.
The trial will always be there, foreground or background, as long as the country’s new record-breaking grand coalition government, the 35th administration in Israeli history, lasts. Because of the indictment the coalition very nearly didn’t happen. It took a decision by the supreme court to allow Netanyahu to be prime minister while standing trial.
The grand coalition is a monster. It is the largest government in Israeli history, a team of 36 ministers and 16 junior or “alternate” ministers. It arrived after three general elections and 508 days without an administration, fully fledged with parliamentary support and confidence.
The speech in the corridors at the courts, for which a lectern with Israeli crest had been thoughtfully provided, was a masterwork of Netanyahu technique: guileful, bombastic, exaggerated by turns. It played on a sense of victimhood, the demands of a security strongman, a vision of Israel’s future.
In it there is much of the mélange of issues, policies and controversies that will preoccupy the coalition for the next 18 months. That is the notional date at which Netanyahu is due to hand over the top job to his coalition partner, Benny Gantz, currently defence minister and alternate prime minister. Don’t bet on this actually happening.
The prime minister denounced those that had brought him to court as a conspiracy by leftist subversives in the state and media trying to bring down a strong leader intent on shoring up Israeli security by annexation of tracts of Palestinian territory.
“Citizens of Israel,” he declared, “what is on trial today is an effort to frustrate the will of the people – the attempt to bring me down and the right-wing camp.” To explain further, “over the last few years they have found a new method: elements in the police and prosecution joined forces with the leftist media – I call them the ‘anyone but Bibi gang’ – to manufacture baseless and absurd cases against me.”
He concluded: “I am not willing to adjust my policies to receive better media coverage, I am not prepared to uproot settlements, and I am not willing to do all sorts of other things, and therefore I must be removed by any means.”
With all the talk of plots and subversion, the speech was more the political theatrics we have come to expect from Netanyahu.
When it came to the 40-minute opening hearing inside court room 317, the atmosphere was very different. The presiding judge, Rivka Friedman-Feldman, referred to the defendant as “Mr Netanyahu” whereas his defending counsel called him Prime Minister. The Senior State Prosecutor, Liat Ben Ari, had been building the case against the Prime Minister for three years. At one point she compared the quantity of evidence to that in “the Holyland case in which I was, coincidentally, involved.” This was the 2012-14 case in which she successfully prosecuted Ehud Olmert, a former prime minister, for bribery during his term as mayor of Jerusalem.
The trial is likely to run for a year or more, without Netanyahu in attendance at court. Even if convicted – and it is a big “if” – he is not likely to go to jail. At the end of next year he is due to swap places with Gantz and become alternate prime minister and defence minister – and he sees this as still affording him immunity. In 14 months, the presidency might become vacant and that could afford him a further lease of seven years’ immunity.
While it might be hubris for Benjamin Netanyahu to echo Louis XIV in saying “L’etat c’est moi,” he would be more accurate in saying the political agenda for the next eighteen months “c’est moi.”
Apart from his own battle in the courts, there are three main themes he and the coalition must address; the controversy over annexation on the West Bank, a budget to relaunch the economy and the continuing shadow of Covid-19.
Netanyahu is credited with handling the coronavirus crisis firmly and adroitly. As acting prime minister during the government hiatus, he oversaw a hard and timely lockdown, plus a track and trace strategy, and is now overseeing a slow relaxation of the rules. He could adjust and adapt when things didn’t work out – for instance changing the regime of Shin bet, the internal security agency, running a mobile phone tracing and tracking system. It wasn’t yielding results, and a new system is being introduced after intelligent public debate. Israel also shut its borders in time, and there were conspicuously few arrivals from China.
To date Israel has recorded 16,771 positive coronavirus cases out of a population nudging towards nine million, with 281 deaths. This is of an Israeli population of just under nine million.
Most significant was the policy towards the Palestinian territories, including Gaza. There were fears that the Palestinian health services would be overwhelmed. Israel lent expertise and equipment to both areas – dumping quantities of kit from ventilators and PPE at the crossing points with Gaza.
The fears of an outbreaks spreading from Gaza and the West Bank have not been realised. To date 423 Palestinians, out of a population of 2.8 million, on the West Bank have tested positive, with two deaths. According to the latest reports, the Gaza health authorities have reported 58 testing positive out of a population of 1.7 million; and last Saturday Abu Raida, 77, a widow, died in the Rafah isolation hospital. Lockdown restrictions are due to be lifted by the Palestinian authorities on June 5.
The impact of the virus and lockdown on the Palestinian economy has become a major factor in the debate about the new government’s plans to annex strategic parts of the West Bank. In part the plans coincide with the “deal of a century” peace plan for Israel and Palestine drawn up by President Trump’s son-in-law and special envoy, Jared Kushner, and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. Pompeo discussed the proposals with Netanyahu, Gantz, now defence secretary, and Gabbi Ashkenazy, the new foreign minister, a few days before the new government was sworn in.
The coalition’s plans for annexation, backed by Likud and many of the more liberal Blue and White alliance – Kahol Lavan – founded by Gantz last year, is due to be unveiled on July 1. Though clear in its aims, it is not likely to be a fait accompli.
Under the plan, a substantial part of the most populous area of the occupied West Bank, Zone “C”, of the three areas of the occupied entity is to become Israeli territory, plus the Jordan valley, mainly for security reasons. This means that about 60% of all Jewish settlements on the West bank will become part of Israel proper. Palestinian farms and villages would be appropriated, and 300,000 Palestinians would become citizens of Israel.
Israeli public opinion is split numerous ways on the issue. Some oppose the annexation plan altogether, while others want an almost complete takeover. The Palestinian Authority has refused to engage on the matter, so far. Many Palestinians think the plan would make any prospect of a Palestinian state – one of the aims of peace negotiations from the Oslo accords in the 1990s and part of the Trump plan – completely unviable.
The question of the viability of a future Palestinian authority is also said to have been a major concern in Pompeo’s discussion of the annexation plans. Under the plan sponsored by Netanyahu, Israel would annex 1,200 square kilometres – 463 square miles – 20.5 per cent of the total West Bank area. Just shy of a quarter of this land is owned privately by Palestinians. Most of East Jerusalem would be absorbed, with a few outlying suburbs left to become a possible Palestinian capital.
In addition, according to the map of proposed changes, 12 Palestinian villages with a population of 13,500 would be annexed from Zone “B.” The Jordan valley is to be become part of Israel, leaving a Palestinian enclave in Zone “A” round Jericho with a population of 43,000.
Arab states, especially Jordan, have criticized the plan saying it will heighten tensions and probably lead to another Intifada – “the shaking” – uprising. Elements of the Israeli Defence Force – the IDF – have expressed concerns of several security issues. More ground forces will be needed to patrol the new areas – the Jordan valley particularly – and man the new border barriers and security gates.
Long term, the annexation argument raises questions about whether there can be a two-state solution to the Palestine and Israel question at all, or there will eventually be some sort of single federated state. This worries some Zionists as much as Palestinian nationalists, with fears that a demographic balance generations hence between Arabs and Jews could spell the end of Israel as presently constituted as a Jewish state.
The more immediate worry, as the new government is well aware, is a potential economic collapse of the Palestinian community of the West Bank. Output in all sectors has taken a big hit in all major sectors, from farming to light industry and construction. Roughly 160,000 Palestinians work in the Jewish settlements normally, while tens of thousands used to cross daily into Israel proper to work. Since lockdown around 30,000 have managed to carry on working in the settlements.
The government knows this is an urgent issue, and the crisis will be worsened by a return of coronavirus in a second wave – which would be worsened if there is a major outbreak in Gaza. The government is planning, preparing and innovating against a recurrence of Covid-19 and any subsequent pandemic, and engaging publicly about it.
This is high on the agenda of this new, top-heavy but bizarrely fascinating coalition of opposites led by Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz.