10 days after his scheduled swearing in as Israel’s 35th prime minister, on May 24, Benjamin Netanyahu is due to walk into the Jerusalem District Court for the reading of his criminal indictment. The cover page of the thick volume reads, “The State of Israel v. Benjamin Netanyahu.” Its appendix includes the names of some 300 witnesses. The charges: bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The historic indictment, the first against an incumbent Israeli prime minister, bears the signature of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.
Nonetheless, in the court of public opinion, Netanyahu has already made his accuser out as the accused. A wave of mudslinging is turning Mandelblit from state prosecutor to defendant, at least in the eyes of Netanyahu’s acolytes. Calls are growing for Mandelblit’s suspension or at least a criminal probe into his actions, both virtually impossible under Israeli law. Reports of alleged wrongdoing by Mandelblit and anyone linked to Netanyahu’s prosecution are flooding the media. Netanyahu’s emissaries and his many outspoken defenders are busy impugning Mandelblit 24/7.
And Netanyahu? He supposedly has nothing to do with it. He is busy forming a national unity government with his political rivals while quietly operating the machinery crushing the attorney general who dared accuse him of grievous criminal offenses. The success of the system is worrying. Less than two weeks before his arraignment, no one is talking about the charges against him and how Israel is about to be led by a prime minister who will spend his days in court and his nights running the country.
The Netanyahu system is simple. He places his people in key bastions and strategic points; he gathers information and pulls it out when the time comes. The current material that Netanyahu’s aides are dusting off for use against Mandelblit has to do with an obscure scandal known as the “Harpaz affair,” which erupted 10 years ago and prompted lengthy investigations against then-army chief Gabi Ashkenazi and a series of other senior office holders. The affair, which involved an alleged failed attempt by an Ashkenazi associate to smear the leading candidate to succeed him, erupted with a bang and subsided with a whimper, with no indictments filed. Mandelblit, then the IDF advocate general, was one of those investigated. While his conduct in the case was examined, the allegations against him were dismissed and the case was closed.
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