Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting from doorway to doorway, refusing to cede a single stronghold. He and his defense team are conducting a determined war of attrition in order to play for time, score points and continue battering and exhausting the prosecutors in the hopes that something will give — the indictment will collapse, the judges will accept the defense arguments.
On Feb. 8, Netanyahu and his legal team arrived to the Jerusalem District Court for the last pre-trial hearing. Netanyahu pleaded not guilty. After that, the court was set to schedule the beginning of the evidentiary stage. Then, Netanyahu’s lawyers asked for the next session to be postponed for after the March 23 elections. Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman, who presides over the three judge panel in Netanyahu’s trial, was unhappy with the request. “In essence, you [Netanyahu’s defense team] are asking to defer the evidentiary stage by six months. We should have heard evidence long ago. Why are we seeking to press on, you ask? Because it’s been a year since the indictment was filed,” she noted.
