The Two Things That Will Determine Netanyahu's Fate

Israeli politics generally follow Ecclesiastes: Nothing is terribly new under the sun. Twenty-one years ago, in early 1997, the Israeli police announced its recommendation that Benjamin Netanyahu, then a 47-year-old first-term prime minister, be criminally indicted for breach of public trust. That case involved the appointment of an attorney general who, police suspected, Netanyahu believed would be lenient in another legal case against a key political player in his coalition (later convicted of and imprisoned for bribery).

The affair damaged Netanyahu publicly; it added to a growing air of impropriety and disregard for public norms that tarnished his first term in office, but Netanyahu was not indicted in 1997. In Israeli procedure it is the justice department, and ultimately the attorney general, who send people to court; the national police can merely issue recommendations when concluding an investigation. The attorney general in 1997—a well respected jurist beyond suspicion—decided that the case was too weak for trial. Nor did the police recommendation alone cause Netanyahu’s coalition partners to leave the government or go to new elections. And so, the 1997 police recommendation notwithstanding, Netanyahu survived politically and continued to serve until 1999, when