When Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu’s defense rests, eventually, the judges will address legal questions like whether prosecutors demonstrated quid pro quos between benefits the former premier received and actions he took for his benefactors.
They will evaluate whether media manipulation is tangible enough to be considered a benefit in a bribery transaction. They will judge the credibility of witnesses; whether evidence was obtained in proper ways; whether witnesses were subjected to excessive pressures from police; whether those pressures undermine the credibility of evidence they provided; whether the prosecution of Netanyahu was influenced by political or other biases.
The answers to these types of questions, and the eventual verdicts, do not matter.
Regardless of whether the court convicts Netanyahu, it was inappropriate for him, and his family, to contact Shaul Elovitch, owner of Walla! News, and his family, about Walla content, while regulatory authorities Netanyahu oversaw were reviewing a business transaction between Bezeq and Yes, companies Elovitch had ownership stakes in.
It was inappropriate for Netanyahu, and his family members, to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars of “gifts,” including expensive jewelry, from billionaires, regardless of whether prosecutors establish a quid pro quo involving Arnon Milchan.
With all due respect to Netanyahu’s accomplishments - such as the 2009-2010 freeze on construction in Judea and Samaria, and the concurrent talks aimed at a negotiated two-state solution; the Wye, and Hevron agreements signed during his first term in office, which expanded the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority; his Bar-Ilan speech, supporting Palestinian statehood; and the negotiations his administration conducted with the Palestinians in 2013 and 2014, also aimed at a two-state solution - his conduct in office has been inappropriate.
Netanyahu has already served over 15 years as prime minister, longer than anyone else, and regardless of the outcome of his trial, it is simply time to move on. It has, in fact, been well over a year since Netanyahu was at the helm, and life carries on, approximately as it was under Netanyahu.
Two others have been prime minister. The country has not collapsed or experienced any great catastrophes. There have been no extraordinary concessions offered to the Palestinians, or overwhelming capitulations to international pressures.
To the contrary, more than a year after Netanyahu was forced out, Israel underwent a major military operation directed at Gaza which was conducted better than any comparable operations Netanyahu oversaw, and was probably the most successful such operation since the Israeli withdrawal.
The military officers who are actually responsible for the operation remain in their posts regardless of the outcome of the election.
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Lebanese President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Yair Lapid signing the maritime border agreement
(Photo: Amos Ben Gershom, GPO, AFP)
Israel also just reached an understanding with Lebanon. Though Netanyahu and others are critical of the agreement, they criticized it without actually seeing it. The situation regarding Iran is similar. Netanyahu points fingers, but there is no reason to believe there would be any substantive difference if Netanyahu had remained Prime Minister.
Having just had the fifth election since accusations against Netanyahu became public, it is clear that he has no problem destabilizing the country for his personal benefit, but other than self-promotion, it is not clear what, if anything, his policy agenda is.
He has become a symbol of the greater Israel movement, but his track record includes the Wye, and Hebron agreements, and several rounds of negotiations with the declared aim of creating a Palestinian state.
In the meantime, having a person on trial for political corruption serve as prime minister, a position which influences the appointments of the attorney general, state prosecutor, police chief, and others, is an obvious conflict of interests to all who look at the situation with their eyes open.
The failure of Netanyahu’s cowardly pathetic cult members - like Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and others - to recognize that in a country of almost 10 million citizens, there is more than one person capable of being prime minister, has become idolatry.
There are, in fact, other able bodied individuals capable of being prime minister who are not as tainted with the aura of corruption, an aura Netanyahu earned through actions that were clearly inappropriate, regardless of whether the court finds them to be criminal.
When you look at parties like Smotrich's Religious Zionist Party you have to ask why, if they support Netanyahu's return as prime minister, do they continue to exist as parties separate from the Likud?
The answer is that, as Smotrich was recently heard saying, even Netanyahu's strongest supporters understand that regardless of his rightist ideological pronouncements, at the end of the day Netanyahu cannot really be trusted for anything. The man is a liar at his core.
Baruch Stein is a writer living in Jerusalem. His work has appeared in media outlets in both the U.S. and Israel.