Thursday, November 21, 2019

Breaking News – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicted for corruption

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement to the press after a security cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv, Nov. 12, 2019. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

By Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Benjamin Netanyahu has been charged in three corruption cases, marking the first time a sitting Israeli prime minister has been indicted.

The charges, announced on November 21 by the Justice Ministry and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, include bribery and breach of public trust.

Netanyahu has denied all the charges and has called the investigations against him a “witch hunt.”

He has 30 days to request that the Knesset grant him parliamentary immunity in order to avoid a criminal trial. Government ministers are required to resign if faced with a criminal charge but not the prime minister.

The most serious charge is for bribery in what is known as Case 4000, which alleges that Shaul Elovitch, majority shareholder of Bezeq, received political favours for the Israeli telecommunications giant in return for favourable coverage of Netanyahu on the Walla! news website owned by the company. Conviction on the charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Netanyahu was indicted for breach of public trust in two separate cases.

In Case 1000, he is accused of accepting illegal gifts from Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan, including Cuban cigars and pink champagne. The gifts totaled about $200,000. In return, Netanyahu allegedly helped secure a U.S. visa for Milchan and supported a law that would give tax breaks to the billionaire if he moved back to Israel.

In Case 2000, the prime minister allegedly advanced a law that would have hurt the free daily newspaper Israel Hayom, funded by the U.S. casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, in exchange for positive coverage from the popular general circulation Yediot Acharonot.

Netanyahu defended himself against the charges during a four-day pre-indictment hearing in October.

The Justice Ministry also announced that Yediot’s publisher, Arnon Mozes, as well as Elovitch and his wife, Iris, will be charged with bribery.

The announcement comes a day after Blue and White party head Benny Gantz said he had failed to form a government coalition. Gantz had worked for about a month to join with Netanyahu and his Likud party in a unity government in which they would alternate serving as prime minister.
One of the sticking points involved whether Netanyahu would step down as prime minister in favour of Gantz if he were indicted.

Blue and White said in a statement: “A prime minister up to his neck in corruption allegations has no public or moral mandate to make fateful decisions for the State of Israel. Because there is concern, whether or not the charges prove to be true or without merit, that Netanyahu will make decisions in his own personal interest and for his political survival and not in the national interest.”

Mandelblitt in a televised statement said, “Today is a hard and sad day.” He said he made the decision to indict Netanyahu “with a heavy heart, but wholeheartedly.”

Responding to accusations that he made the charges public in order to help lawmakers to form a government, he said in his statement: “It is not an issue of right or left. It is not an issue of politics, it is required.”

He called the lengthy process of investigation and leveling of charges “serious and responsible,” and said the decision was made “only for legal considerations and based on evidence. No other consideration influenced me.” He added, “At the end of the day the decision was mine.”

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

From the Editor: Feel the Bern on antisemitism and Israel


Michael Regenstreif

By Michael Regenstreif
Editor

Since returning to work a year-and-a-half ago after open-heart surgery, daily exercise has been a priority and since my office is located in the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (SJCC), I am very lucky to have a first-class fitness centre just downstairs from my desk. The SJCC locker room is often the scene for impromptu and opinionated discussions on the news and issues of the day.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders – who is currently campaigning for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination – has been the centre of a couple of recent locker-room discussions. If nominated, Sanders would be the first Jewish candidate nominated by one of the two major parties for the U.S. presidency.

The first discussion was in early October after Sanders suffered a heart attack on the campaign trail and had a couple of stents inserted to open up his arteries. One of my locker-room buddies was angry that Sanders, whom he described as “pro-BDS, anti-Israel and antisemitic,” would have Israeli-made stents inserted.

I don’t know whether or not Sanders’ stents were made in Israel. I could find no mainstream media references to where the stents were made. Be that as it may, it is simply wrong to suggest that the leftist Sanders is “pro-BDS, anti-Israel and antisemitic.”

Sanders has spoken of his admiration for the Jewish state and for the ideals of Zionism, and has noted that he lived and worked on a kibbutz near Haifa as a young man in 1963.

While Sanders has consistently voiced his support for the State of Israel, including the right of Israel to defend itself from attacks, and for a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, he has been vociferous in his opposition to certain Israeli government policies, particularly the occupation and settlement expansion in the West Bank, and to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On these matters, Sanders is in lockstep with about 75 per cent of the American Jewish community, as well as with millions of Israelis.

On BDS, Sanders has repeatedly rejected the call to boycott Israel. Earlier this year, he released a statement saying, “While I do not support the BDS movement, we must defend every American’s constitutional right to engage in political activity.”

The more recent locker room discussion about Sanders was on November 14 (I am writing this on the 15th), a few days after Sanders published an article in Jewish Currents on antisemitism – an article that has provoked much reactionin Jewish circles.

I was pleased to see Sanders write so eloquently about antisemitism, particularly about the lethal consequences of right-wing antisemitism as manifested by the white nationalist movement. As Sanders points out, “hate crimes against Jews rose by more than a third in 2017 and accounted for 58 per cent of all religion-based hate crimes in America.” That year, we saw what happened in Charlottesville, and more recently we have seen right-wing antisemitism lead to the tragic synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway.

But it was disappointing to see Sanders merely pay lip service to left-wing antisemitism, noting, “It is true that some criticism of Israel can cross the line into antisemitism, especially when it denies the right of self-determination to Jews, or when it plays into conspiracy theories about outsized Jewish power.”

While right-wing antisemitism has repeatedly proven lethal, the effects of left-wing antisemitism are also consequential. Look at how pro-Israel students are marginalized on many campuses. Look to the United Kingdom, where the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, once overwhelmingly supported by British Jews, is now seen by many as an existential threat to the Jewish community. Or look to some of Sanders’ own supporters like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who has apologized more than once for using antisemitic tropes, or Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour, who claims that a feminist cannot be a Zionist.

Sanders’ generalized thoughts on antisemitism and his specific thoughts on right-wing antisemitism are correct. But he seriously underplays the extent and the effects of left-wing antisemitism.