The 9 April 2019, millions of Israeli citizens will queue up in front of the polls to elect the new parliament, which in turn will give life to what will become the thirty-fifth government in the history of the State of Israel. However, this year's general elections are taking place in a particularly heavy climate, and not because of yet another border clash with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
This time to make the political debate incandescent is the legal ordeal that was created around the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, whose name has been approached to 5 burning cases of corruption of vast proportions that are shaking from the high down the Jewish state elite. Actually, in Israel corruption, especially in politics, is not a problem of the other day. Going to dig deep, in the annals of the Jewish state, a large number of political careers have been found to have been sunk due to "kleptocratic" behavior. Despite the media hype, if we consider all the national and international statistics (in particular those produced by Transparency International) it is not possible to properly define Israel as a "corrupt state" (for example, the corruption perceived by citizens in their everyday life is lower than the level recorded in Italy!). However, a series of weaknesses in the legal system, particularly in tax matters, makes the country absolutely permeable to the infiltration of dirty capital from all sources, so much so that the much vaunted "start-up nation" is also one of the main hubs of the so-called "shadow / gray economy" (informal / gray economy). Unfortunately, the empirical reality shows that, if "dirty" capital is grafted into a thriving economic environment, it is only a matter of time before the "metastases" spread throughout the system, eventually reaching politics.
The first of the legal "pains" affecting Netanyahu is the so-called "1000 CASE". The prime minister is accused of receiving gifts worth more than one million shekels from several billionaire friends of his, including James Packer and Arnon Milchan. Despite the "forbidden" goods in question they turn out to be cigars, champagne and luxury jewels destined to satisfy the pleasure pleasures both of the premier and of his wife Sarah Ben-Artzi and the couple has always maintained that it is only a matter of exchanging gifts between friends, although expensive, it seems that in reality the "traffic" hides something much larger than the classic "dish of lentils" of biblical memory. Investigators of the Israeli police are in fact convinced that Netanyahu has "paid" the expensive gifts by now granting favors now tax or legislative relief for the use and consumption of his billionaire friends. Arnon Milchan, in particular, seems to have benefited greatly from a law dated 2013 (and euphemistically called "Milchan Law") which, by extending his status as a "resident of return", guaranteed him considerable tax relief.
The second court case is called "CASE 1270" and revolves around the offer that would have been made by Netanyahu's former media adviser, Nir Hefetz (photo opening on the left), directly to district attorney Hila Gerstel (photo ) so that he could drop the accusations made against his wife Sarah because of his "crazy expenses". In exchange for renouncing the proceeding, Gerstel could have aspired to become the new legal advisor of the country's government. Although Gerstel promptly refused the "indecent proposal" and indeed continued to pursue the pending lawsuits against Sarah, the case of attempted wrongdoing remained. Although the name of Netanyahu itself has not been mentioned in the investigation papers, it is very unlikely that a person like Nir Hefetz has decided to act totally alone and, moreover, unaware of the desired de chief. Here therefore the legitimate doubt emerges that, in reality, poor Hefetz was only a pawn in the hands of Netanyahu to do the "dirty work" on his behalf.
The next on the list is the "2000 CASE", which revolves around the relationship between the prime minister and two important dailies like "Yedioth Ahronoth" and "Israel Hayom". The first is the best-selling daily newspaper in Israel and its publisher is Arnon Mozes, a member of the homonymous dynasty of Israeli businessmen, while the second is a newspaper with free distribution owned by the American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, always personally linked. to Netanyahu. Although "Israel Hayom" has always enthusiastically supported Netanyahu's policies, making it the media's sounding board, it seems that the prime minister has at some point decided to extend his "media umbrella" by starting a non-orthodox negotiation with "Yedioth Ahronoth "Which, despite being a daily center-right newspaper (the same ideology followed by Likud, the premier's party) has never presented the policies of the prime minister and its governments in a good light, preferring instead to publicize the activity and positions policies of other party forces within the Knesset. Well, since January 2017 audio recordings have begun to circulate between Netanyahu and Mozes during which the prime minister would discuss with the publisher the possibility for the publisher to present the government in a more positive light in exchange for the approval of a new regulation aimed at limiting the spread of "Israel Hayom" and other free distribution newspapers.
The most dangerous court case of all, however, is the "3000 CASE" and on it, the entire Israeli political-military class is shaking. In line with a plan to expand the naval weapon that started as early as the end of the 90, Israel decided to upgrade both its surface and underwater fleets. Currently, the main combat core of the Israeli fleet is composed of 8 missile corvettes of the "Sa'ar 4.5 class" (sub-class "Hetz") built in Israel, 3 corvettes of the "Sa'ar 5 class" built in the United States on an Israeli project and on 6 submarines of the "Dolphin class" (divided into 2 sub-classes) produced in Germany on a joint Israeli-German project. After lengthy technical evaluations, and following a methodical selection process of the various projects presented by the international partners, the authorities of the Jewish State decided to opt for Germany, both as regards the supply of 4 corvettes of the "Sa'ar 6 class" both for the construction of additional 3 submarines that would constitute the third sub-class of the aforementioned "Dolphin class". Assuming that the technical times are respected, and adding also the naval units previously mentioned, within 10-15 years the Israeli navy would align 24 naval units both of surface and subaquee of a certain size and endowed with the capacity to generate a great fire power ; very remarkable for a country of less than ten million inhabitants whose interests in the naval field are a recent thing. Yet, the opacity of the negotiations between the German multinational Thyssenkrupp and the Israeli government and the discovery of anomalous flows of money recorded during tenders have prompted the police and judicial authorities to investigate thoroughly, discovering an abyss of corruption substantially similar to the Italian "Tangentopoli". For the moment Netanyahu has not yet been entered in the register of suspects but, after the investigation has already lapped many of his own family members (including his cousin and personal lawyer David Shimron), many now believe that his hour is alone matter of time.
Finally, the last affair involving the premier is the "4000 CASE", the subject of which is the secret negotiations between Netanyahu staff members and the management of the communications conglomerate Bezeq, owner of the Walla Internet company among other things! Comunications Ltd. Based on what has been filtered by the investigations, the premier's staff would have agreed with the Bezeq management to get unprecedented media coverage of Netanyahu's work, offering lucrative multi-year contracts to Bezeq in return "Incentives" to individual managers.
The simultaneous explosion of all these cases has left a significant mark on Israeli public opinion. Perhaps it is too much to think that the judiciary will be enough alone to sink "the battleship Netanyahu" which has already shown over and over again to be "politically immortal". However, the fact that this time it is the state legal adviser Avichai Mandelbit and the police chief Roni Alsheikh who decided to go all the way should remind Bibi that he is not above the law either.
Photo: IsraelMFA / Israel Democracy Institute / IDF
