Netanyahu Is Finally Facing Opponents Who Won’t Back Down
On Sunday afternoon it will finally hit him – maybe when he passes the security guards protecting the courtroom’s back door. Or maybe earlier, as he broods in the motorcade crossing Jerusalem west to east, sirens howling.
But it will certainly hit him when he looks in the eyes of the three judges and finds not an iota of groveling or weakness. These won’t be the faces of his yes-men or the politicians begging for a portfolio, scattering the last crumbs of their dignity.
This wasn’t the plan, to stand before the judges and answer the simple question: “Has the defendant read the indictment and understood?” On this unexplored planet he’s not Mr. Prime Minister, he’s a defendant facing criminal charges. More precisely, he’s the most senior defendant, standing there and disgracing the country he leads.
Had his designs succeeded, this event would never have taken place. We would have seen parliamentary immunity, legislation overriding the High Court of Justice, and a blocking of his indictment as long as he’s prime minister. He might have fired the attorney general and appointed a substitute who would have delayed, delayed and delayed.
Get breaking news and analyses delivered to your inbox
Email*
Please enter a valid email address
Sign up
Please wait…
Thank you for signing up.
We’ve got more newsletters we think you’ll find interesting.
Click here
Oops. Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Try again
Thank you,
The email address you have provided is already registered.
Close
All the plots collapsed, all the schemes were scrapped. The rungs he labored to install on his escape-from-justice ladder were sawed off.
His pathetic attempt to dodge his trial’s opening, with childish pretexts that had no chance of working, was disdainfully dismissed by the judges after being rejected by the State Prosecutor’s Office. His attorneys Amit Hadad and Micha Fettman wackily responded that Netanyahu in the dock was “a continuation of the ‘Anyone but Bibi’ campaign.”
Only an especially suspicious mind would think that the two lawyers had been forced to sign such blatantly unprofessional, undignified words that someone else had written. Let’s say someone from the defendant’s family.