Former United States President Donald Trump was hit with a sweeping fourth set of criminal charges on Monday when a Georgia grand jury issued an indictment accusing him of efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

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The charges, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, add to the legal woes facing Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election.

Video: Georgia court charges Trump, former advisers in 2020 election case/Credit: Reuters

The sprawling 98-page indictment listed 19 defendants and 41 criminal counts in all. All of the defendants were charged with racketeering, which is used to target members of organized crime groups and carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

Among the other defendants were Mark Meadows, Trump's former White House chief of staff, and lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman.

"Trump and the other defendants charged in this indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump," the indictment said.

Lawyers for those named either declined to comment or did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case stems from a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump urged Georgia's top election official, Brad Raffensperger, to "find" enough votes to reverse his narrow loss in the state. Raffensperger declined to do so.

Trump's supporters stormed the US Capitol four days later in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent lawmakers from certifying Biden's victory.

The indictment cites a number of crimes that Trump or his associates allegedly committed, including falsely testifying to lawmakers that election fraud had occurred and urging state officials to violate their oaths of office by altering the election results.

Prosecutors also cited the breach of a voting system in a rural Georgia county and the harassment of an election worker who became the focus of conspiracy theories.

It also mentions an alleged scheme to subvert the US electoral process by submitting false slates of electors, people who make up the Electoral College that elects the president and vice president.

The indictment reaches across state lines, saying that Trump advisers, including Giuliani and Meadows, advanced the conspiracy by calling officials in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere seeking to change the outcome in those states.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, and accuses Willis, an elected Democrat, of being politically motivated.

Trump has already pleaded not guilty in three criminal cases.

He faces a New York state trial beginning on March 25, 2024, involving a hush money payment to a porn star, and a Florida trial beginning on May 20 in a federal classified documents case. In both cases, Trump pleaded not guilty.

A third indictment, in Washington federal court, accuses him of illegally seeking to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump denies wrongdoing in this case as well, and a trial date has yet to be set.

Georgia, once reliably Republican, has emerged as one of a handful of politically competitive states that can determine the outcome of presidential elections.

Trump persists in falsely claiming he won the November 2020 election although dozens of court cases and state probes have found no evidence to support his claim.

Not hurting his campaign

Strategists said that while the indictments could bolster Republican support for Trump, they may hurt him in next year's general election when he will have to win over more independent-minded voters.

His lead over Republican presidential rivals has widened since the New York charges were filed in April, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

But in a July Reuters/Ipsos poll, 37% of independents said the criminal cases made them less likely to vote for him, compared to 8% who said they were more likely to do so.

Willis's investigation drew on testimony from Trump advisers including Giuliani, who urged state lawmakers in December 2020 not to certify the election, and Republican state officials like Raffensperger and Governor Brian Kemp, who refused to echo Trump's false election claims.

While many Republican officials have echoed Trump's false election claims, Kemp and Raffensperger have refused to do so.

Raffensperger has said there was no factual basis for Trump's objections, while Kemp certified the election results despite pressure from within his party.

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Trump has been mired in legal trouble since leaving office.

Apart from the criminal cases, a New York jury in May found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million in a civil case. A trial is scheduled for Jan. 15 on a second defamation lawsuit seeking $10 million in damages. Trump denies wrongdoing.

Trump is due to face trial in October in a civil case in New York that accuses him and his family business of fraud to obtain better terms from lenders and insurers.

Trump's company was fined $1.6 million after being convicted of tax fraud in a New York court in December.

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On Tuesday night, America was informed that its 45th president, Donald Trump, was indicted yet again – for the third time. This time he is accused of particularly grave crimes concerning the most fundamental principles of US democracy.

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The latest indictment details an alleged plot to subvert the 2020 presidential election and sever the chain of voluntary transfers of power between presidents.

Paradoxically, the two previous indictments filed against Trump – charges related to a hush-money payment to an adult film star in 2016 and the retention of classified documents and conspiracy with a top aide and an employee at Mar-a-Lago – did not affect his popularity.

Video: The indictments against former US President Donald Trump. Credit: Reuters

If anything, it only exacerbated the deep resentment of his supporters, primarily from the working class, toward what they perceive to be an elitist establishment harassing the true representative of the American people in an attempt to prevent him from returning to the White House through falsifications.

This is reflected in the latest polls, conducted ahead of the third indictment, in which Trump ranked significantly ahead of his main Republican opponent Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis (Former Vice President Mike Pence and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley ranking much lower).

In other words, Trump seems to be off to a promising start in his conquest to become the GOP presidential nominee. But what's putting a spoke in his wheel are strained campaign finances and the third indictment that could harm his popularity, especially among moderate Republican voters.

It is certainly true that the traditional voter turnout among the "gatekeepers" of the Republican movement, who constitute Trump's main support base, is higher than that of its moderates.

It cannot be ruled out, however, that the growing number of indictments ahead of the election will alienate less hardcore Republican voters who might view Trump as too heavy an electoral liability.

Moreover, although Trump seems to hold most of the support compared to other Republican candidates, the picture is certainly not the same when looking at his popularity among the general public.

Although Trump seems to have the most support of any Republican presidential candidate, his numbers are much less impressive when looking at his popularity among the general public. According to polls, only about 40% of potential voters support the former president.

Fortunately for Trump, his Democratic rival – President Joe Biden – too has similar surprisingly low ratings. Assuming Trump becomes the GOP presidential nominee, Biden and Trump will compete with each other in terms of their overall unpopularity.

Neither project vitality and vigor, with Trump having just turned 77 and Biden being 80. On top of that, the former president is facing complex legal challenges that not only rob him of the spotlight but might even land him in jail.

As such, it makes one ponder – will the Republican Party succeed in capitalizing on this opportunity in the form of a fatigued Democratic president by deciding to minimize risks and choosing a less controversial candidate such as DeSantis?

Only time will tell.

Professor Abraham Ben-Zvi and Dr. Gadi Warsha's upcoming book, published by Lamda-The Open University Press, is called "Knock of every door: Israel's foreign policy 1948-2018" (Hebrew).

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Donald Trump has been indicted on charges of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, a remarkable development that makes him the first former president in US history to face criminal charges by the federal government that he once oversaw.

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The Justice Department was expected to make public a seven-count indictment ahead of a historic court appearance next week in the midst of a 2024 presidential campaign punctuated by criminal prosecutions in multiple states.

The indictment carries unmistakably grave legal consequences, including the possibility of prison if Trump's convicted.

But it also has enormous political implications, potentially upending a Republican presidential primary that Trump had been dominating and testing anew the willingness of GOP voters and party leaders to stick with a now twice-indicted candidate who could face still more charges. And it sets the stage for a sensational trial centered on claims that a man once entrusted to safeguard the nation's most closely guarded secrets willfully, and illegally, hoarded sensitive national security information.

The Justice Department did not immediately confirm the indictment publicly. But two people familiar with the situation who were not authorized to discuss it publicly said that the indictment included seven criminal counts. One of those people said Trump's lawyers were contacted by prosecutors shortly before he announced Thursday on his Truth Social platform that he had been indicted.

Within minutes of his announcement, Trump, who said he was due in court Tuesday afternoon in Miami, began fundraising off it for his presidential campaign. He declared his innocence in a video and repeated his familiar refrain that the investigation is a "witch hunt."

The case adds to deepening legal jeopardy for Trump, who has already been indicted in New York and faces additional investigations in Washington and Atlanta that also could lead to criminal charges. But among the various investigations he faces, legal experts – as well as Trump's own aides – had long seen the Mar-a-Lago probe as the most perilous threat and the one most ripe for prosecution. Campaign aides had been bracing for the fallout since Trump's attorneys were notified that he was the target of the investigation, assuming it was not a matter of if charges would be brought, but when.

Appearing Thursday night on CNN, Trump attorney James Trusty said the indictment includes charges of willful retention of national defense information – a crime under the Espionage Act, which polices the handling of government secrets – obstruction, false statements and conspiracy.

The inquiry took a major step forward last November when Attorney General Merrick Garland, a soft-spoken former federal judge who has long stated that no one person should be regarded as above the law, appointed Jack Smith, a war crimes prosecutor with an aggressive, hard-charging reputation to lead both the documents probe as well as a separate investigation into efforts to subvert the 2020 election.

The case is a milestone for a Justice Department that had investigated Trump for years – as president and private citizen – but had never before charged him with a crime. The most notable investigation was an earlier special counsel probe into ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia, but prosecutors in that probe cited Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president. Once he left office, though, he lost that protection.

The indictment arises from a monthslong investigation into whether Trump broke the law by holding onto hundreds of documents marked classified at his Palm Beach property, Mar-a-Lago, and whether Trump took steps to obstruct the government's efforts to recover the records.

Prosecutors have said that Trump took roughly 300 classified documents to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House, including some 100 that were seized by the FBI last August in a search of the home that underscored the gravity of the Justice Department's investigation. Trump has repeatedly insisted that he was entitled to keep the classified documents when he left the White House, and has also claimed without evidence that he had declassified them.

Court records unsealed last year showed federal investigators believed they had probable cause that multiple crimes had been committed, including the retention of national defense information, destruction of government records and obstruction.

Since then, the Justice Department has amassed additional evidence and secured grand jury testimony from people close to Trump, including his own lawyers. The statutes governing the handling of classified records and obstruction are felonies that could carry years in prison in the event of a conviction.

Even so, it remains unclear how much it will damage Trump's standing given that his first indictment generated millions of dollars in contributions from angry supporters and didn't weaken him in the polls.

The former president has long sought to use his legal troubles to his political advantage, complaining on social media and at public events that the cases are being driven by Democratic prosecutors out to hurt his 2024 election campaign. He is likely to rely on that playbook again, reviving his longstanding claims that the Justice Department – which, during his presidency, investigated whether his 2016 campaign had colluded with Russia – is somehow weaponized against him.

Trump's legal troubles extend beyond the New York indictment and classified documents case.

Smith is separately investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. And the district attorney in Georgia's Fulton County is investigating Trump over alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election in that state.

Signs had mounted for weeks that an indictment was near, including a Monday meeting between Trump's lawyers and Justice Department officials. His lawyers had also recently been notified that he was the target of the investigation, the clearest sign yet that an indictment was looming.

Though the bulk of the investigative work had been handled in Washington, with a grand jury meeting there for months, it recently emerged that prosecutors were presenting evidence before a separate panel in Florida, where many of the alleged acts of obstruction scrutinized by prosecutors took place.

The Justice Department has said Trump repeatedly resisted efforts by the National Archives and Records Administration to get the documents back. After months of back-and-forth, Trump representatives returned 15 boxes of records in January 2022, including about 184 documents that officials said had classified markings on them.

FBI and Justice Department investigators issued a subpoena in May 2022 for classified documents that remained in Trump's possession. But after a Trump lawyer provided three dozen records and asserted that a diligent search of the property had been done, officials came to suspect even more documents remained.

The investigation had simmered for months before bursting into front-page news in remarkable fashion last August. That's when FBI agents served a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago and removed 33 boxes containing classified records, including top-secret documents stashed in a storage room and desk drawer and commingled with personal belongings. Some records were so sensitive that investigators needed upgraded security clearances to review them, the Justice Department has said.

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The investigation into Trump had appeared complicated – politically, if not legally – by the discovery of documents with classified markings in the Delaware home and former Washington office of President Joe Biden, as well as in the Indiana home of former Vice President Mike Pence. The Justice Department recently informed Pence that he would not face charges, while a second special counsel continues to investigate Biden's handling of classified documents.

But compared with Trump, there are key differences in the facts and legal issues surrounding Biden's and Pence's handling of documents, including that representatives for both men say the documents were voluntarily turned over to investigators as soon as they were found. In contrast, investigators quickly zeroed on whether Trump, who for four years as president expressed disdain for the FBI and Justice Department, had sought to obstruct the inquiry by refusing to turn over all the requested documents.

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Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit decided on Tuesday evening to indict Likud MK David Bitan on a raft of corruption offenses allegedly committed while serving as a lawmaker in the Knesset.

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Bitan, formerly the coalition chair in former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, was charged with accepting bribes, breach of trust and tax offenses in seven different cases. They were allegedly committed while he served as a councilman in the central Israeli city of Rishon Lezion and a member of the Knesset.

Bitan allegedly accepted over NIS 715,000 ($200,000) in bribes while serving in public office. Other people charged in the cases include a Tel Aviv deputy mayor and former Israeli soccer player Haim Revivo.

As a sitting member of the Knesset, Bitan has 30 days to request immunity from prosecution from parliament. Bitan's attorneys said in a statement that the court would find he committed no wrongdoing.

As a reminder, last March the Israel Police recommended indicting Bitan, among other things for accepting bribes, money laundering and tax offenses.

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If the court decides Netanyahu cannot form a government, it could precipitate a constitutional crisis in Israel, and exacerbate the already tenuous ties between the Israeli government and the judiciary.

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The hearing followed a petition filed by 67 academics, security officials, and cultural figures arguing that even though Israeli law allows a prime minister to continue serving in his position until proven guilty in court – and even until all appeals are exhausted – the same law should not permit a candidate under indictment to be tasked with forming a government and becoming prime minister.

The court did not hand down an immediate ruling and gave no indication on whether it would deliberate it further or reject it outright. Given the sensitivity, It may ask for a full panel of 13 judges to convene on the matter. Either way, it was wading into uncharted territory.

Israeli law requires cabinet ministers and mayors to resign if indicted but does not specify so for a sitting prime minister. There are no restrictions on Netanyahu to run in the March 2 election – the third in less than a year – but good governance groups are appealing on whether he could be tasked with forming a new government if he emerges victorious.

"We claimed that the head of the executive authority can't be a person who is in a conflict of interest between his personal interests and the interests that we as the public need," argued Dafna Holtz-Lechner, the attorney leading the petition.

Given the shaky legal ground, the court could deem the scenario hypothetical and delay the case until the situation presents itself.

Avi Halevy, a lawyer for Netanyahu, called it a "political petition."

"Those deciding in the State of Israel and in a democracy who will serve as prime minister, according to any system, are the people and only the people," he said. "We, of course, hope it will be Benjamin Netanyahu."

Netanyahu submitted a letter to the court on Monday countering the basis of the petition, writing: "In a democracy, the people decide who leads them and no one else. Otherwise, it's not a democracy. This petition is an attempt to drag the court into an issue that is not under the court's jurisdiction. The respectable court has no authority in this matter, and the issue should not have been brought before it. It should have been left to the decision of the voters. For this reason alone, the petition must be rejected out of hand."

Netanyahu added that the law already specifies that a prime minister "can serve until convicted in a final ruling for transgressions that carry with them moral turpitude. … There is no reason to veer from this constitutional principle, outlined in the Basic Law and in an explicit law only because a specific prime minister is not liked by the petitioners."

Netanyahu is expected to ask the Knesset for immunity by midnight, Wednesday. If granted, it will shield him from any legal proceeding pending the future end of his term.

However, such petitions are usually discussed by the Knesset's House Committee which, in the absence of a government, does not exist.

Blue and White MK Avi Nissenkorn, who heads the Knesset's Arrangements Committee – a temporary forum that replaces the role of the House Committee in introducing legislation until a new government is formed – has begun the necessary preparations to discuss Netanyahu's immunity petition, saying that as the matter is of the utmost public importance, the Arrangements Committee must use its authority to form a House Committee during a transitional government.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that he plans to relinquish three portfolios for which he has been an acting minister, namely the Labor and Welfare, Agriculture, and Diaspora Affairs ministries.

Another portfolio held by Netanyahu, Health, was handed over to United Torah Judaism leader Yakov Litzman, whose position was upgraded from deputy health minister to health minister.

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Netanyahu is currently facing charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust in three corruption cases.

Likud officials, however, said he has not yet made his final decision on the matter.

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"Contrary to reports, immunity is only a temporary issue for a tenure period only and is not an evasion of prosecution," the Likud said in a statement.

"In any case, Prime Minister Netanyahu has not yet decided on the issue and will announce his decision in the coming days."

After winning the Likud leadership primary by a landslide last week, Netanyahu is expected to argue that the public has given him a vote of confidence, meaning he needs immunity to be able to run the government without needing to deal with a trial, Channel 12 reported.

But even if Likud wins the March 2020 elections, there is still the question of whether a prime minister under indictment can form a government. The High Court of Justice is expected to debate this issue later on Sunday.

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The decision, filed with the High Court of Justice, followed a petition by the Movement for Quality Government, demanding that Netanyahu, who is facing a corruption indictment, vacates all his posts.

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Netanyahu currently holds the health, welfare, agriculture, and Diaspora affairs portfolios. He is expected to appoint ministers for these posts until the March 2, 2020 elections conclude and a new government is sworn in.

Netanyahu's lawyers informed the court that while Israeli law does not preclude an indicted prime minister from staying in office, nor does it require him to relinquish any ministerial post, he will do so out of respect to the judicial process.

They further argued that the law requires a minister to resign only if they have been found guilty of a crime involving moral turpitude.

"It is not the High Court of Justice's place to intervene on the issue of resignation. The interest of maintaining the public's faith in the judiciary mandates that the court uphold the fundamental of the law in this case. Any judicial intervention in this process will be detrimental to the principle of separation of powers, Israeli democracy, and the Knesset's authority to regulate this issue via a basic law, as it has done so far."

As Netanyahu is the first sitting prime minister to be indicted, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit has already weighed in on the administrative-constitutional implications of the situation, which poses a legal precedent.

He ruled that the court has no say on whether Netanyahu should or should not take a leave of absence to sort out his legal situation, saying that "this decision is best left on the political-public sphere."

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Dubbed "Case 3,000," the scandal centers on a possible conflict ‎of ‎interest surrounding the 2 billion euro procurement ‎of ‎ ‎submarines and naval vessels ‎from ‎German ‎conglomerate ‎ThyssenKrupp in 2016‎.

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In a statement, the Justice Ministry said prosecutors accepted recommendations police made last year on the indictments in the case.

Netanyahu was questioned, but not named as a suspect, in the submarine probe.

The suspects in Case 3,000 include Netanyahu's attorney ‎and ‎cousin David Shimron, former National Security Council Deputy ‎Director ‎Avriel Bar-Yosef, Israeli businessman Miki Ganor, who ‎was ‎the German company's representative in Israel, former Israeli ‎Navy Commander Vice Adm. ‎‎(ret.) Eliezer Marom, Shay Brosh, former commander of the navy's elite Shayetet 13 commando unit, and David Sharan, who ‎served as the prime minister's bureau chief between late 2014 and ‎mid-2016. ‎

Pending pre-trial hearings, Shimron will be charged with money laundering. Sharan, Marom and Ganor will face that charge as well as bribery, the ministry said.

Netanyahu, who was in Lisbon on a state visit, had no comment on the indictments.

Thyssenkrupp has said an internal probe found no evidence of corruption in its handling of the 2016 contract for the sale of three submarines to Israel, and Israeli prosecutors have taken no action against the conglomerate.

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The biggest question hanging over that third election is whether Benjamin Netanyahu can even run for the position of prime minister given the fact that he faces three indictments. Israeli law allows for someone to continue serving under indictment and says that a prime minister must only step down if found guilty by a judge after a trial. But it is unclear whether someone can run for prime minister to begin with, while under indictment.

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Earlier this week, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit ruled that Netanyahu can remain as interim prime minister, but Mendelblit did not weigh in on the question of whether or not he can be chosen to form a government and become prime minister once a new election is declared.

Prof. Yedidia Stern, vice president of the left-leaning Israel Democracy Institute, told JNS that "it is better for decisions regarding who the country's leader will be to remain in the hands of the citizens and not the legal system."

He continued, "Therefore if he wins the next election, I believe the president should not be held back from giving Netanyahu the mandate to form the next government even while under indictment," Stern said.

Stern explained that "the law does not address the specific question of someone running for prime minister while under indictment. Given that reality, it would be far-reaching judicial activism to establish that the president cannot give the mandate to form a government to someone who the citizens of the country vote for, assuming that they vote in high numbers of Netanyahu."

Regardless, whether the attorney general decides to allow Netanyahu to run or not, the decision will be challenged by the disagreeing side and the question will likely end up before the Supreme Court.

Former Supreme Court Justice and Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, who was involved in writing that law, told Army Radio this past week that the intent was to prevent a prime minister, who was elected by the people, from being removed from office by the prosecutor.

The removal of a prime minister from office leads the country into new elections and a prosecutor should not have the power to make that happen, Rubinstein noted.

"But the law shouldn't apply to a prime minister who is only in office by default and then the country is heading to an election anyway," he argued.

"The people have not elected Netanyahu to office at this time and he has failed to form a government twice. He should not be allowed to continue as prime minister and certainly should not be allowed to run for office in a new election while he is under indictment."

There is one important technicality that must be noted as part of this debate. The prime minister has not been officially indicted nor can he be until after a new government is formed, which will be after the election if no government is formed in the next two weeks.

In usual circumstances, when a member of Knesset is charged with criminal activity, the Knesset member can ask the Knesset House Committee for immunity. The indictment becomes frozen and cannot be officially submitted to the court until the Knesset decides whether to give the MK immunity or not. If the House Committee grants the immunity, then the full Knesset votes on it.

Since there is no new government and there is no new House Committee in the Knesset, the prime minister has no vehicle to ask for immunity and that freezes the entire process. If the country goes to a third election there won't be a new government until at least April 2020 at the earliest.

As a result, Netanyahu has not and cannot be officially indicted at this time and the earliest Netanyahu's indictment can even be submitted to the court will be more than five months from now, after the president has been tasked with giving a Knesset member, possibly Netanyahu, the mandate to form a new government.

This strengthens the likelihood that he will be permitted to grant this right to Netanyahu if he wins the election since the prime minister won't have been officially indicted at that time.

Several Likud Knesset members told JNS that they cannot believe that the attorney general would involve himself in an election by ruling that Netanyahu cannot become prime minister of a new government.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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One was the response to the US State Department's announcement that Israeli settlements don't violate international law. What was striking was that many opponents didn't actually challenge the department's (correct) legal conclusions. Instead, they objected on policy grounds.

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Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden, for instance, complained, "This decision harms the cause of diplomacy, takes us further away from the hope of a two-state solution, and will only further inflame tensions in the region." Another leading Democratic candidate, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, termed the announcement "a significant step backward in our efforts to achieve a two-state solution."

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, was particularly blatant. While acknowledging that the decision focused solely on international law, he worried that it "will be widely read as a broader change to the US position on Israeli settlements," which "would place serious and critical obstacles to a viable two-state solution." Consequently, he urged the administration "to reverse its position."

Essentially, all three want the settlements declared illegal simply because they think settlements are bad policy, regardless of what international law actually says. In other words, they're incapable of distinguishing policy from law.

People who understand this difference have no problem with settlements being recognized as legal because they understand that something can be bad policy even if it's legal. Indeed, that's precisely what all administrations, both Republican and Democratic, did for roughly three decades between Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama: They vehemently opposed settlements on policy grounds while simultaneously acknowledging that they weren't illegal.

Yet the concept of "it's legal, but it stinks" has evidently gone out of style, especially on the Left. When leftists think something stinks, they want it declared illegal, even if it's not.

The advantages of this tactic are obvious. Policy questions, by definition, are disputable; indeed, many people disagree that settlements are bad policy. But law ostensibly eliminates controversy because once the courts rule something illegal, then everyone is supposed to accept that it must stop. Thus branding any policy one opposes as illegal is meant to make it politically illegitimate. If settlements are illegal, they mustn't be built, even if they're actually good policy.

Granted, this ploy has an inherent problem when it comes to international law since there are no recognized courts whose authority to make such judgments is universally accepted. Neither America nor Israel, for instance, ever agreed to accept the legal interpretations of the International Criminal Court, UN agencies or any other such body. And without an accepted arbiter, whether or not something violates international law is endlessly debatable.

But the bigger problem is this tactic's enormous cost, which far outweighs any possible benefit: When people start branding anything they object to as "illegal," they turn the law into just another player on the political battlefield. And once that happens, legal decisions will be treated with no more respect than any other political pronouncement.

Thus Americans who object to recognizing the settlements' legality on policy grounds are destroying any pretensions that international law might have to objectivity and impartiality, just as the European Union did by insisting that international law requires labeling products from Israeli settlements, but not from Turkish settlements in northern Cyprus or Moroccan settlements in Western Sahara. In both cases, international law is being treated not as an objective, universally applied standard, but as a selective political tool to punish disfavored countries or policies. And as such, it deserves no more deference than any other political decision.

Given how amorphous international law actually is, that may be no great loss. But when the same tactics are applied to domestic legal systems, the consequences become devastating. Once a significant portion of the citizenry starts to view legal decisions as politics in another guise, the consensus on which democracy's survival depends – that legal decisions must be honored – will rapidly erode.

As I've noted before, this is already happening in Israel. But last week's indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provides a particularly worrying example of the costs.

I'm the rare Netanyahu supporter who thinks that one of the three cases against him is actually serious. But for two understandable reasons, many supporters believe that he's simply being persecuted by a leftist legal establishment frustrated by repeated failures to oust him through democratic elections.

The first is that the Attorney General's Office and the courts have intervened in literally thousands of policy decisions over the past three decades, frequently in defiance of actual written law and almost always in the Left's favor. In short, both bodies have routinely behaved like political activists rather than impartial jurists. So rightists have no reason to trust their impartiality now.

Second, Netanyahu has been targeted by frivolous investigations – including, in my view, two of the three now going to trial – ever since he first became prime minister in 1996. All involved genuinely repulsive conduct on Netanyahu's part. But rather than treating such conduct as a problem on which the public, rather than the courts, must render judgment, the legal establishment repeatedly opened cases against him, to which they devoted countless man-hours before finally closing them.

Now, the legal establishment says it has finally found a real crime. But like the boy who cried wolf, Netanyahu's supporters no longer believe it.

The combination of these two factors means that many Israelis genuinely feel that their prime minister has been ousted by a corrupt legal establishment solely because it opposes his policies. And that will inevitably foster even greater distrust of the legal system.

Leftists spend a lot of time these days fretting about democracy's possible collapse. But if they really want to avert such a collapse, the first step is to stop politicizing the law, so that legal institutions can regain public trust. For without a legal system whose decisions are widely respected, democracies will be left with no way of resolving disputes but the one shared by dictatorships and anarchies – plain old-fashioned brute force.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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