Three weeks before the April 9 elections, crunch time for the prime minister, a disaster struck Benjamin Netanyahu: The so-called “submarine affair,” considered by many the most serious corruption case in the country’s security history, resurfaced at the worst possible time. If there was one issue that Netanyahu tried hard to keep out of the public debate in his run for a fifth term, it was the suspected corruption involving Israel’s purchase of submarines from Germany. Now, it's all people are talking about. The result was a rare drop for Netanyahu in the polls, with some showing his rival Blue and White Party once again pulling ahead of the Likud by as many as five Knesset seats.
Although many of Netanyahu’s close associates and relatives are up to their necks in this scandal, Netanyahu himself had emerged relatively unscathed so far. At the start of the police probe into the case, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit ruled that Netanyahu was not a suspect. The police did not question Netanyahu under caution and eventually cleared him. Yet in Israel, nothing is final. Surprising developments have brought the scandal to the fore once again and the prosecution is reportedly considering re-opening the submarine case, or at least part of it.