The decision to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was made “with a heavy heart but also with a whole heart,’’ Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said Nov. 21 in informing Israelis that he has decided to charge Netanyahu with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
Mandelblit knows his boss inside out. He was a confidant of the prime minister and a member of his intimate circle, serving for four years as Cabinet secretary. "Prime Minister Netanyahu is a privileged man. I have been privileged to work beside him and to see his many talents and abilities as prime minister … (but) law enforcement is not a choice. … It's not a matter of right or left, it's not a matter of politics," Mandelblit said. The attorney general emphasized that it was a difficult day for the Israeli public and for himself personally as he dropped the bombshell, which threatens now to sow unprecedented chaos throughout Israeli society.