Inside Israel Today: The Legal-Political Spiderweb

right at this moment Netanyahu is not in any danger however if he tries to hold on to office or former government the whole issue of whether he can continue to serve under indictment will come up again you're listening to inside Israel today with your Hoffman on the land of Israel Network hello and welcome to inside Israel today you're in the Land of Israel Network on the land of israel calm people are listening all around the world many of you in places that have political messes like America like England here right now I don't think it's bad as those places but it's pretty bad we are in the middle of a massive legal and political spiderweb that is very difficult to untangle in order to help us be able to untangle it we will be speaking soon to The Jerusalem Post legal expert legal analyst Jonah Jeremy Bob who will help us put this in perspective but since we last had this show last week the Attorney General of Ehime and ilat decided to indict Netanyahu on three cases he indicted him for case 1000 which is the expense of gift affair he indicted him for case 2000 and which is the newspaper collusion affair and he indicted him for case 4000 which is the Bezeq wallah affair the Bezeq wall affair involves a billionaire on the phone company and the cable company normally you cannot own two mega companies but Netanyahu who is the communications minister and therefore the regulator let him continue to own both companies in return for positive news coverage there may be had been some hope that Netanyahu could get out of it out of that last one where there was bribery charges because what kind of bribery is positive news coverage anyway why would that be considered a bribe always politicians ask journalists to give positive news coverage well it didn't work the Attorney General was not convinced not by Netanyahu and his hearing not even by some of the world's top legal experts who testified Alan Dershowitz and avi Bell these professors from the United States their testimony was permitted at the last minute they said that if you make positive news coverage a bribe then it isn't a precedent-setting case all around the world and so Netanyahu getting these indictments even after his hearing where he thought he would persuade mandala to let him off and he ended up not letting him off at all in any way Netanyahu has decided that he has been treated unfairly that the state prosecution was out to get him that the police were out to get him and there's some collusion between the media and the law enforcement legal establishment to bring him down and so he decided to began a war against the legal establishment in his speech reacting to his indictments a couple hours later he told the people of Israel you have to go to the streets and protest against the way he has been treated and so there is a very big protest tonight in Tel Aviv and Netanyahu has strongly encouraged in the public speeches in private meetings with mayor's in social media the people of Israel to go out and be a part of these protests he is trying to make an ideological issue to say that the left controls the legal establishment and they're out to get the right even though the Attorney General of if I'm and the blitt comes from a right-wing home is right wing is ultra-orthodox no one could really accuse him of being left-wing but he accuses him of giving in to the state prosecution on the left-wing people they're so right-wing groups for instance the women in green sovereignty group via hoody cats over and Nadia Matar an organization that that Eve hero was very very much involved in it at the start sent a message out saying tomorrow we're assembling for a demonstration on behalf of the land of Israel what the Land of Israel no not not to help Netanyahu not go to jail no but for the Land of Israel what do they say in their message here no to the government overflow overthrow everyone knows the truth the persecution Netanyahu is only a pretext they seek to divide Eretz Israel they seek to topple the right-wing government and we will not allow it they knew how to whitewash the crimes of generations of leaders on the Left they seek to topple the entire right by toppling Netanyahu we will gather in the city center in Tel Aviv on behalf of the territorial integrity of eretz yisrael and on behalf of democracy I guess they they bought it they believe that this demonstration is going to be a demonstration of the right against the left not a demonstration to keep knitting Yao out of prison it's certainly easier for Netanyahu to sell this that way I mean the majority of Israelis right now our right wing or right-of-center not the majority of Israelis care so much about keeping knitting you out of prison that they would go to such a demonstration people take pride in their beliefs about keeping the Land of Israel much more so than they take pride in defending charges of bribery breach of trust and fraud we're very proud here to be on the Land of Israel Network we are not on the fraud bribery and reach of trust network over here I don't know if the people that are attending this rally tonight really understand what it's about I know that people are very good at marketing like Netanyahu is really an ace at that and if he's decided that this is a rally to keep the Land of Israel okay but it's really really really not but it's about and there are a lot of right wing people who have realized that and have said you know what I don't feel comfortable going to a rally against the legal establishment of the state their rabbis have called this be tool Torah a wasting time that you should be learning Torah I would maybe go go more with with Beatle family wasting time that you should be with your kids and not at a rally whose message is the Attorney General is a bad guy the state prosecution are bad people the police can't be trusted now if we had a rally against the parking ticket givers I'm there the parking ticket givers that those people are nasty they give us tickets even when we pay for parking they pretend not to see that we did pay for parking I'm there but don't tell me that the parking the anti parking ticket rally is really to keep the Land of Israel I'm not going to fall for me after the break we're gonna talk more about this with the owner Jeremy Bob this week on the high flyer show Woodstock meets the Bible the first purchase of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel is celebrated as 45,000 people gathered in Hebron this past Shabbat for Parshat Chaya Sarah the eighteen hundred years later after this event took place King Herod built the building that is still there today and for there was a giant building there the tour keeps on saying this is where it is you got to know where it is it's a real place in the Land of Israel it's a real purchase that's the UI quite sure show new show every Thursday on the land the visceral network at the Land of Israel dot-com [Music] and we're back here on the Land of Israel network on the Land of Israel calm where as we said we are going through the legal mess as well as the political mess that Israel is in right now on our show today and because I do not understand so much this legal mess we are going to go straight now to the legal expert Yona Jeremy Bob of The Jerusalem Post explain what trouble Netanyahu is in okay Netanyahu is still in trouble he still could be forced out of office but the Attorney General I'll become a Noblet who's indicted him just last Thursday gave him a big big reprieved yesterday there are three different ways that somebody could get him out of office and pretty much Amanda watt said two of them can't happen right now I me another one I'm punting and seeing what happens if there's an election if somebody can form a coalition so right at this moment Netanyahu is not in any danger however if he tries to hold on to office or former government the whole issue of whether he can continue to serve under indictment will come up again what was unexpected that happened in the ruling on Thursday what was unexpected from Thursday I would say was the keeping case 2000 in the game right so case 4000 that's the Bezeq welfare that's the most serious one bribery charge some people thought that there wouldn't be a bribery charge I always said there would be case 1000 pretty much all the way through the Imperial gifts affair was going to be breach of trust and from the beginning Amanda Blake himself has disliked case 2000 it's my opinion that if there had been no case 4000 he would have closed case 2000 and I thought he still might because case 2000 is attempted bribery right this is the easy aqua notes you throw a young fair say lien there was actually no bribery so it's attempted bribery and who wants to go to court against the Prime Minister and something that didn't even actually happen in the end so I personally thought that the case Amanda blow would close it in the end he kept the case my understanding of what happened was he reduced from bribery to breach of trust the rest of the prosecution went to bribery and since they were already indicted the owner of you do note for bribery they couldn't completely let Netanyahu out of the case I think that's how it went down last question since I know you're in a hurry explain why case 4000 is bribery what was the quid pro quo what happened that got Netanyahu in so much trouble quid pro quo it's now got positive coverage systematically from wala that's what's alleged in the indictment and in exchange for that Netanyahu made not one several different policy changes and Communications Minister fired people who are in the way at the communications ministry to make sure that these policies would go through the majority of the rank-and-file professional apolitical people the communications ministry thought that these changes were wrong and many of them said so and these changes collectively made approximately 1.8 billion shekel for so elevates who owes also owned wallah so basically at 1.8 billion dollars for positive media coverage but Alan Dershowitz and those other professors said that positive media coverage is in a bribe and it sets an international president why didn't that work in stopping it so first of all there's a guy named Itamar Simoni who's the name that everybody should learn and he's the mayor of Oscar loan and there's a case against him about media bribery and because of that already nobody could add nobody can actually factually say that this is the first case but they can't say it hasn't happened often it is a new idea media bribery okay so sometimes there's people figure out new ways sophisticated ways to do something that we goal that hadn't been done before and if the law is able to deal with this at the end of the day what is bribery bribery is the giving of something of value and a quid pro quo and as most of a door-- former chief lee prosecutor said what's the value of winning an election at the media coverage now is this opening close no could a court end up deciding I don't like media bribery or I don't like it in this case yes but it's gonna go to trial thank you very much for your time that was gonna Jeremy Bob the legal analyst and correspondent for The Jerusalem Post he's a very very busy man these days and so that is why that was short but I really think that we packed it in and I hope that you understand better why Netanyahu is in so much trouble legally right now but without being asked Yona actually gave us a nice segue into the political portion of our show because he explained why Netanyahu is in not as much trouble politically the Attorney General ruled that bebe doesn't have to quit right now he did not give the ruling that that Netanyahu's political opponents wanted that he it is not permitted legally for him to be able to form a government he did not say he can form a government he said he is not going to deal with that now because it's theoretical that Netanyahu could form a government and I gotta admit I've been hearing that for three days different leaks from the attorney general's office that that's gonna be his ruling that he's gonna say it's theoretical and every time I hear it I laugh it's what do you mean it's theoretical for Netanyahu for my government he's trying every moment of every day to form a government everybody wants a government to be formed people have differences of opinion of who should form the government who should be in the government but are you kidding me it will become a lot more practical to form a government if you will rule and say that he either can form a government or he can't form a government if you would say that he can't form a government that somebody else can form a government because we'll know that he can't because the reason why Benny Katz can't form a government is because people preferred for Netanyahu a form of government it now doesn't exist then somebody else can form a government maybe somebody else and they could we'll be able to form a government if the Attorney General says that Netanyahu can't form a government and if Netanyahu can form a government then it'll be easier for him to form a government because one of the reasons why Netanyahu can't form a government is because people think the Attorney General might say that he can't form a government how dare you say I'm not gonna tell you I'm gonna keep it a secret and how dare you give this odd excuse that it's theoretical there is nothing less theoretical than this and there are people that want the Attorney General to make decisions for them politically and he's not gonna give them that pleasure he's not going to overthrow their prime minister as maybe opponents of Netanyahu would want and he's going to not going to not overthrow the Prime Minister so he's just gonna leave everybody upset you know and and maybe there should end up being a demonstration for it against the Attorney General for not giving an opinion and then the right and the left can go there and the pro Netanyahu people and the antenna to me how people can go there and and just agree that they want the Attorney General to actually say what he thinks about whether Netanyahu should be able to form a government we've only been waiting to find that out for a year now and just speculating and then all we can do is continue to speculate and so without the Attorney General deciding for the politicians they're gonna have to decide themselves and we have only 16 days left for them to do that they have until next Wednesday night at midnight that between Wednesday and Thursday it's not enough time it would be nice if the politicians are maybe pass a law saying these 21 days which we've never had before that we're in right now or any member of Connecticut form of government maybe make it 51 days just so they can actually really get around to doing it and again Israelis tend to not do anything until the last minute anyway and so we're back into garbage time ladies and gentlemen it didn't have to be this way it could have been that the Likud could have allowed a snap primary and then they would already started working on it yesterday but Netanyahu needs to approve that staff primary it's now is the leader oblique hood Nandhini I was elected to be the Lee Koontz candidate for prime minister in the current Knesset in order to have another primary where somebody else runs against him Netanyahu has to give his approval for that and it makes complete sense Netanyahu could have said you know what run against me I'm gonna win anyway I'm gonna take this boost he didn't he didn't take that risk and because of that if Likud primaries won't be happening between now and that December 11th deadline they're gonna have to work on a different idea work on some other kind of creative solution and it's only gonna happen the last day or two ahead of December 11th it will remain a very big mess until then we will currently remain in our garbage time where nothing is really going to be done except if some kind of Savior comes with this creative solution whatever it might be a lot of eyes are looking at the Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein because he's wearing two hats he has the Hat of potential he could candidate he could say missing Yahoo can't form a government I can form a government the same way that Guiteau and SAR did and and then a primary could be forced easier if you got two very serious candidates who wants to run against the prime minister instead of one frustrated guy was just trying to maybe build himself up so when a primary would be held without Netanyahu ventually that he will have an edge on his opponents there's also the chance that Yuli Edelstein will intervene as the Speaker of the Knesset do something to try to force these members of Knesset to compromise try together with the president Reuven Rivlin to do whatever you can to stop an election from happening yesterday Avigdor Lieberman he said in his press conference at the Knesset lock them in a room the president of the Knesset speaker should lock the party leaders in a room and don't let them leave until there's white smoke and now Viktor Lieberman meant the white smoke that there is when you're picking a pope and that there is at the Vatican he didn't mean for Rivlin and Edelstein to kill them but still it was surprising for me to see that after last week when Lieberman speech was all like talking about how much he hates the ultra-orthodox and how much he hates the Arabs that he was back into being more of a mediating figure and not someone trying to set fire by spreading gas everywhere so here we are we have 16 days left politicians please do something the people of Israel do not want elections the people of Israel are divided about whether their right wing or left wing your Center they're divided over Netanyahu's cases they are united against elections and since the Attorney General is not going to decide for us it's up to the politicians good luck this has been Gil Hoffman here on inside Israel today on the Land of Israel Network on the land of israel calm I will be back in this chair next week presumably equally confused hi this is Eve Harrow host of rejuvenation on the Land of Israel Network you can hear a new show from me every Sunday and every day of the week shows from another one of my very talented fellow show hosts reach me Eve at the Land of Israel calm and keep listening everybody we love your feedback the Land of Israel coming at you every day every week that's the Land of Israel network on the Land of Israel calm