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With clock ticking, Netanyahu still undecided on plea bargain

If former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agrees to a plea bargain that would include a moral turpitude conviction, he would be banned from Israeli politics for seven years.
AVSHALOM SASSONI/AFP via Getty Images

Has former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resigned himself to the end of his political career? Do the secret contacts he has been conducting with the prosecution on a plea deal that would see him admitting to criminal charges of fraud and breach of trust signal the end of the Netanyahu era?

As these lines are written, there is no clear answer to these questions. Netanyahu is zig-zagging and deliberating while the prosecution is hesitant to believe the sincerity of his intentions. Netanyahu, his wife Sara and two sons Yair and Avner spent hours on Jan. 16 at the home of his lead attorney Boaz Ben-Tzur in the suburban Tel Aviv town of Ramat Gan discussing the pros and cons of a deal that would shut down his corruption trial with an admission to fraud and breach of trust in return for which the prosecution would drop the bribery charge.

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