It’s too early to assess whether the scandal dubbed “Noni-Gate” — a police investigation of a deal discussed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Arnon (Noni) Mozes, the publisher of the mass circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth — will result in an indictment of one of these two gentlemen, or both. One cannot rule out the possibility that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit will accept their version of events — that negotiations over a deal in which Mozes would tone down Yedioth’s hostile coverage of Netanyahu and in return, Netanyahu would help prevent the distribution of the free Yedioth rival Israel Hayom were only designed to entrap each other. Mandelblit, who, like Elyakim Rubinstein, went from being Cabinet secretary to being appointed attorney general, could also follow in the footsteps of his predecessor in a similar past affair. Rubenstein had dismissed a case of suspected corruption against Netanyahu in the year 2000 involving gifts and suspected bribery by a contractor named Avner Amedi.

Back then, Rubinstein cited “evidentiary difficulties” in explaining his decision at the time not to prosecute Netanyahu, despite recommendations to the contrary by police and then-State Attorney Edna Arbel. Nonetheless, Rubinstein, who was subsequently named to the Supreme Court, shared with the public the “grim picture” that had unfolded before his eyes in the case. He expressed his hope that the citizens of the state would not let their politicians “scheme against the public interest.” Since then, the number of such “grim pictures” painting the Netanyahu family’s extravagant lifestyle at the expense of taxpayers keeps growing, and Rubinstein’s hopes are increasingly evaporating.

Israeli politicians are vigorously scheming on the backs of the public, virtually unhindered. The consumers of the free pro-Netanyahu daily Israel Hayom, the most popular paper in the country, read that Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu are victims of the leftist media. There’s no need for any expertise in reading between the lines of this paper funded by Netanyahu’s sponsor, American gambling tycoon Sheldon Adelson, in order to understand that Netanyahu’s talking points are delivered daily on its pages. On the other hand, the rival daily Yedioth Ahronoth and its affiliated Ynet news website used to portray themselves as unbiased media outlets guided by nonpartisan editing considerations.

From taped conversations between Mozes and Netanyahu, it seems that Yedioth, too, schemed against hundreds of thousands of its readers. A petition seeking approval of a 200 million shekel ($52 million) class-action lawsuit against Yedioth Ahronoth, submitted Jan. 15 to a court in the town of Lod, argues that representation of the paper and the Ynet website as unbiased journalistic products was a falsehood. The petitioners argued that the paper was for years guided by economic and personal considerations of the shareholders — considerations that significantly impacted the content the paper sold its readers.