Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will stand trial for bribery and fraud, an unprecedented development that could doom his career and shape the political crisis that\u2019s gripped Israel this past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 70-year-old Netanyahu will be charged in each of the three cases in which he was entangled, the Justice Ministry said in a statement, painting the picture of a leader who abused his position to take gifts from wealthy friends and sacrificed the integrity of his office to win favorable media coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The indictment rejects Netanyahu\u2019s protestations of innocence and comes at a tumultuous time in Israeli politics. Twice Netanyahu has been unable to put together a governing coalition after back-to-back elections this year. Challenger Benny Gantz also was given a chance but failed, and the prospect of a third vote early next year looms large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Netanyahu is accused of receiving about 1 million shekels worth of cigars, champagne and jewelry from wealthy businessmen, including Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan, in exchange for tax breaks. He\u2019s also accused of reshaping the country\u2019s communications landscape and discussing an offer to weaken a leading newspaper in order to win sympathetic coverage from the media moguls that would benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Netanyahu won\u2019t have to step down now that he\u2019s been charged, only if he\u2019s convicted and has exhausted all avenues of appeal. He\u2019s said he has no intention to resign, and maintains he\u2019s the victim of a conspiracy of left-wing opponents and media figures who deplore his nationalist agenda and are frustrated by their inability to vote him out of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Netanyahu\u2019s legal woes stoked his desire to stay in power. He\u2019s hoping to push through legislation shielding a sitting leader from prosecution, though that\u2019s been complicated by the failed coalition-building. Critics have alleged that he engineered this year\u2019s two elections hoping to build a government that would deliver the protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the prime minister\u2019s Likud party remains publicly supportive of him, pressure on Netanyahu to resign could mount. At least one leading Likud member, Gideon Saar, has said he\u2019s prepared to challenge him for the party leadership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will stand trial for bribery and fraud, an unprecedented development that could doom his career and shape the political crisis that\u2019s gripped Israel this past year. The 70-year-old Netanyahu will be charged in each of the three cases in which he was entangled, the Justice Ministry said in a statement, painting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75015,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75013\/revisions\/75015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}