Israeli politics' fixation on Benjamin Netanyahu is detrimental to our ability to contend with a judicial system threatening our sovereignty and democracy. Even before he was accused of crimes, Israeli politics had split along one singular fault line: his supporters and detractors. Almost every single question is filtered through this prism. His battle against the State Attorney's Office has exacerbated the "Netanyahu fixation" phenomenon gripping Israel, and now it is neutering the political debate over the balance of power between government branches.
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The prosecution's conduct surrounding Netanyahu's cases raises incredibly troubling questions. A matter-of-fact discussion on the cases against him could have exposed a power-hungry group fighting to maintain its clout and subjugating politicians to its authority. But there is no such discussion, as everything question is framed as either being good or bad for Netanyahu. Moreover: The judicial system has a vested interest in convicting him and thereby quashing threats to its eminence. We must therefore assume that he will be convicted, and we must assume that his conviction will instil his successors with dread. They will no longer look to confront a judicial system that has exceeded its dimensions and threatens democracy in Israel. It is an exceedingly gloomy forecast indeed.
Even before we know whether Netanyahu will be exonerated or not and on what counts – and without having a vested interest either way – rather substantive suspicions have emerged about evidence "fishing" against him in contravention of the law, witness extortion, selective law enforcement in relation to his political rivals, and criminalizing behavior that journalists and politicians in democracies have engaged in since the beginning of time.
Beyond these suspicions, a dark shadow has hung over the State Attorney's Office for several decades now. Numerous decisions have risen more than few eyebrows. Former Justice Minister Daniel Friedman is apparently an extremely humble saint; otherwise it's hard to understand how he evaded the long arm of the State Attorney.
What chances do we have for matter-of-fact discussions on these matters, and other important questions, when the candidates to succeed Netanyahu are threatened by an unrestrained State Attorney's Office? This is the situation for Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, Avigdor Lieberman, Gideon Sa'ar, senior Likud ministers and other party leaders. It seems none of them have been graced with the courage, intellectual prowess or moral spine required to contend with the State Attorney's Office emotional manipulations. The office and its mouthpieces have been able to convince them that they are saving the public from supposed corruption and oppression while they, the politicians, are trying to infringe of the State Attorney's jurisdiction.
Netanyahu's trial is already raising the question whether there's a point to electing officials to manage our affairs. Will they be anything more than puppets in the hands of the government clerks, chief among them the jurists? And what degree of trust will we be able t place in our systems of law enforcement and justice? Some are hoping that the "system's" clash with a powerful leader will be the catalyst for its recuperation. But this is a false hope. Netanyahu cannot try altering the checks and balances because any such action will be interpreted as an attempt to evade justice or as revenge.
The pessimism surrounding Netanyahu's legal fate is not baseless; Ruth Gavison was right in diagnosing the tragedy of his situation. If a possible conviction leads to his defeat in the election, the "rule-of-law-gang" will have won and will control us. But even if he wins the election and forms a government, the battle still will not have been won. The battle will have to be led by someone untainted by accusations and suspicions, although we've already seen the "creativity" possessed by the State Attorney and Israel Police. We will have to win the fight. Our sovereignty and democracy depend on very deep constitutional and administrative reforms to our sick systems of law enforcement system and checks and balances between government branches, in order to eliminate the threat to Israeli democracy.
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