The election agenda will soon reach a turning point. After the focus on COVID, after a non-lockdown, an impressive vaccination campaign, and after parties break up and reform, in less than two weeks – if there is no last-minute postponement – former CEO of Walla Ilan Yeshua will take the witness stand at the Jerusalem District Court.
The Netanyahu trial will become a show trial the like of which Israel has never seen. In addition to the question of whether a trial can be fair under these conditions, another question will arise – can a fair election be held in these conditions?
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In the last day or so the rival parties have restarted the main war machines they've used in recent months. One after another, Gideon Sa'ar, Avi Nissankoren, Benny Gantz, and Naftali Bennett have rolled out plans for the country's legal system, including of course discussion of the Netanyahu trial. They are assuming that the legal matter, which has become one of the main issues of concern for the Israeli public – on both sides – could serve as fertile ground for their campaign against Netanyahu.
Yeshua's testimony will be dramatic. The trial, which will take place three days a week, will be in the headlines and at the start of the news broadcasts. The verbiage that will be spilled, most of which we already know due to endless leaks that went along with the investigations, will mostly involve the prosecutors, and have direct links to Netanyahu's political rivals.
At first, Yeshua will not be asked tough questions, because as usual, the prosecution will have the first go. At this stage, the attack will be combined. The prosecutors, with help from the media and echoed by the political rivals, will not allow any other discourse, anything that could be more convenient for Netanyahu, to penetrate its near-hegemony of the discourse. It will do its best to steer the prime minister toward the loss they are longing to see when the polls open in March.
All this will happen as Netanyahu, according to the polls, will be leading the biggest party in Israel. This time, too. Despite his trial. In the past, political processes influenced the judicial system. Law enforcement and the courts honored political processes. The fact that a candidate is on trial with the public during criminal proceeding caused leaders of the criminal process who honor the presumption of innocence to put aside investigations and trials and allow the candidate to earn the public's trust without tainting them with suspicions and allegations that weren't proved. That is how the investigators in the Kadima affair under Tzipi Livni conducted themselves. But those days, at least when it comes to Netanyahu, are gone.
The attorney general has already announced that the political schedule will not affect the legal one, and even took care to file an indictment during a campaign. On Sunday, we saw that after the court asked the prosecution to adjust 10 articles in the indictment, something that could reasonably be expected to take weeks, a revised version was submitted within days, lest the start of the trial be put off. The judges were the ones who requested it, but in other similar cases the prosecutors were also able to seek postponements when necessary.
To promote the legal system reforms Sa'ar has rolled out, he needs to be part of a coalition that will make them possible. This doesn't exactly square with the declaration of his natural partners in the Anyone-but-Bibi camp – Nissankoren, Gantz, and the heads of the Labor party. The same goes for Naftali Bennett. Ayelet Shaked, who prides herself on the changes she instituted as justice minister, will not be able to continue with the reforms if she sits in the same coalition as Yair Lapid and Ron Huldai.
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