Five years into a legal and media campaign designed to prove to the public that Benjamin Netanyahu is guilty of three serious corruption cases, the mountain has turned out to be a molehill. Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit and his mentor, former Chief Justice Aharon Barak are trying to run from the trial with their tails between their legs, agreeing to remove the bribery charge from Case 4,000 and completely remove Case 2,000 from the indictment.

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It seems that instead of three serious corruption cases, we are left with a judiciary that is trying to exploit Netanyahu's fear that he has no chance of getting a fair trial to blackmail him into admitting to breach of trust - an amorphous, blanket charge that allows the judiciary to grab the political system by the throat.

Several senior Israeli jurists have already admitted that there is no way for Netanyahu to be completely exonerated, even if he were to prove his innocence. This is why we must first and foremost respect Netanyahu's decisions with respect to the handling of his defense – whatever they may be – given the fact that he and his family have been the subject of unprecedented persecution for the past three decades.

However, there are several key reasons why Netanyahu should not pursue a plea bargain.

First, anyone who thinks that a plea deal would end the turmoil that has plagued us for the past few years and promote the process of healing in Israeli society is wrong.

The hatred for Netanyahu is the main agenda of a significant part of the legal and media elite and they will not leave him alone. Weakness in the face of blackmail only invites more bullying and not only will a plea deal not promote healing, it will do the opposite: even a partial and minor admission will prove that given enough pressure even Netanyahu caves in. This will be the opening shot for cases 5,000 and 6,000, only this time it will be difficult for Netanyahu to say that there is nothing to it as he was just blackmailed into admitting "something."

Bullying can meet only one response: an iron wall.

Moreover, Netanyahu's trial has become the trial of the justiciary. Barak has all but admitted that he supports the deal because the trial could undermine his life's work, namely the judicial revolution. Every day in which the trial plays out in court reveals not only that the indictment is unfounded, but also the transgressions by the police and the prosecutors.

Netanyahu is required to make a sacrifice that precedes the rule of any law in order to allow us to rebuild democracy.

Never has Netanyahu enjoyed the kind of popularity and approval ratings as he has over the past few years. This is because millions of right-wing voters understand that Netanyahu is taking a hit for them.

For many, he has already made history by being considered to be the greatest prime minister since David Ben-Gurion, but his steadfast resolve vis-à-vis the legal and media witch hunt could be his greatest achievement. It is heroic perseverance that makes him not only a historic prime minister but a first-rate leader in the chronicles of the Jewish people.

On the other hand, there is enormous damage in Netanyahu admitting to something he did not do. An admission by Netanyahu, as meager as it may be in relation to the original allegations and even when it is clear that it stems from extortion, will sentence Netanyahu to a historic disgrace, and that is a stain he will find very difficult to remove.

Last, but not least, there is the political reason why the opposition leader should not agree to a plea deal: the latter will lead to Netanyahu's exit from politics, but if he keeps fighting, there is a high probability that he will return to the Prime Minister's Office within a few years.

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Why is it that the Israeli Left, which can rally hundreds of senior IDF reservists, academics and former senior civil servants to sign petitions protesting the policies of right-wing governments through the ages, cannot seem to find a foothold in the run-up to the March elections?

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Despite a sizeable arsenal of potential leaders, the Left has become almost irrelevant. Not only has it failed to produce a legitimate candidate for prime minister, even when it disguises itself as centrist, it fails to present a single slate that can claim to present an alternative to the Right's rule.

The Left holds conventions on the issue of how the bloc that "founded the state" has found itself perpetually on the benches of the opposition, but it avoids at all costs the inevitable conclusion: the Left is shrinking because its path has failed and claimed the lives of thousands of Israelis in the process.

The Left's reaction to this failure included every possible excuse other than a reckoning. Electorally, the Left has opted for a strategy of ambiguous positions and establishing fad parties that brand themselves as centrist.

The massive success of Blue and White proved the tremendous electoral power inherent in left-wing control of the centers of power.

Its slate included three retired chiefs of staff and the TV superstar, two generals in reserve, two senior police commanders, a former Mossad deputy director, and two senior media figures.

A handful of advertisers successfully harnessed the arsenal of left-wing public brands, creating a political mutation that brought an almost irrelevant political camp within touching distance of the Prime Minister's Office – yet this, too, failed.

Blue and White's political demise is of paramount educational significance. It proved again, that you cannot judge a book by its cover. Former IDF chiefs of stuff don't necessarily have what it takes to survive the political battlefield, let alone lead the country.

This has made many Israelis question – is this the best the Left has to offer?

Here lies the Left's mediocrity paradox: The Left seems utterly unable to come up with one figure the public can trust.

The lesson learned from Blue and White's implosion revealed a poignant truth: the vast majority of those who reach the top of the public service sector are, at the end of the day, mediocre people.

The reason for this is simple: the centers of power in Israel do not work in accordance with the meritocratic principle, according to which those who excel are promoted rather they are based in organizational politics, vetting committees, and semi-fixed tenders.

Nepotism and playing favoritism in the centers of power gives the Left superiority over the Right in terms of its ability to flaunt endless lists of former seniors; but this practice has taken its toll on the Left in the form of its complete degeneration.

The result is a camp that has fatally damaged its ability to nurture people of stature. The left can present us with endless lists of senior officials with hollow titles - but not a single charismatic and high-ranking leader can be found among them.

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Events in the United States in the days since the Capitol riots have been taking place at nothing short of a dizzying pace: Twitter permanently banned US President Donald Trump; Facebook suspended accounts of conservative leaders of public opinion; CNN has called on cable companies to remove Fox News from their services, and Amazon, Google and Apple have kicked microblogging service Parler off their platforms.

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This is only a partial list of the great purge that the Silicon Valley-based tech giants are pursuing against the conservative camp in the US.

Since the Israeli Left is no more than an extension of the American progressive Left, we immediately saw calls to muzzle some on the Right under the guise they are "inciting" and "distributing fake news."

The good news is that this McCarthyesque witch-hunt is that all the cards are finally on the table and even the most naive rightists will have to understand something very basic: the Israeli Left wants to muzzle the Right altogether, period.

This is abundantly clear wherever the Left reigns: in academia, in the judiciary, in the cultural establishment and in the media.

It was naive to think that the Left would let the social media slip from its chokehold. The Left is now exposing its brutal McCarthyist nature, thus proving its commitment to liberal values is hollow.

The bad news is that the Right is entering the battle for freedom of expression without the mental and physical tools to successfully wage war, chiefly because the Right's political culture is passive.

We are used to complaining about the "leftist media", but continue to consume it like zombies even when there are adequate alternatives on the Right. The problem is even more serious in terms of the Left's ability to spark moral panic, and the Right's knee-jerk reaction to go on the defensive.

Too many right-wingers in the media, academia and politics have a hard time getting rid of the obscene habit of justifying themselves and asking for legitimacy from those who want to silence them.

The Right has to develop independent platforms and media outlets rather than suffice with its status as a fig leaf in the leftist media.

Instead of striving to "balance" the existing mechanisms, the Right should remove barriers and create a real free exchange of opinions. The Public Broadcasting Corporation, Army Radio and the suffocating regulation on televised media – all work against the public interest and must be undone.

Given the frightening McCarthyist onslaught in the US, which is the essence of the Israeli Left's fantasy, the right must break free from its defensive position.

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If the Left had delivered such an agreement, there would be a week-long peace party in the streets. The news studios would be broadcasting around the clock; there'd be songs of peace expressing a collective sense of euphoria. But lo and behold: We have peace, a new Middle East taking shape before our very eyes, and not only are the studios unenthusiastic – the atmosphere during their broadcasts is reminiscent of a mourner's tent.

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"There's no deal and no war has ended," journalist Raviv Drucker wrote this week, while former Meretz leader Zahava Galon suggested we all remember that "our conflict is with the Palestinian people and was never with the UAE, with which we don't have a shared border or quarrel." B'Tselem Chairman Hagai Elad encapsulated the Left's bitterness by stating: "The UAE [treaty] doesn't give hope to the Palestinians."

A peace deal isn't worth a hill of beans and there's no reason to rejoice if it doesn't include withdrawal to the 1967 borders and uproot Jews from their homes. All the more so when the conception – whereby normalization with Arab countries is impossible without first resolving the Palestinian problem – just received a resounding knockout punch. The past week exposed what many on the right have long suspected: The peace camp couldn't care less about peace.

But this is only the first dance in this masquerade ball. The heated land dispute surrounding the river running through Kibbutz Nir David reveals that the principle of equality for which the Israeli Left has fought for nearly 100 years is entirely flexible and malleable. Not only have the Left's more prominent figures not stood with the residents of Beit Shean – who claim the public should have free access to the river – but a small handful of leftists who have supported their cause have come under virulent and occasionally racist attack. It appears that distributive equality and justice are nice slogans, until it comes to the green grasses of the kibbutz and the property taxes the Kibbutz movement's regional councils receive from IDF bases or Dead Sea factories at the expense of the development towns.

What was that about integrity in politics and fighting corruption? These principles, too, it seems, are exceedingly adjustable. Raviv Drucker seriously argued this week that not only should the media not focus on the construction violations allegedly committed by Liat Ben-Ari, who is the lead prosecutor in the corruption cases against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and her husband, but that "it's hard to describe the injustice imposed on Ben-Ari." Drucker and his colleagues covering the legal beat took considerable pains to minimize and conceal the facts exposed by Eli Zippori, Kinneret Barashi, Erel Segal, and Israel Hayom's Akiva Bigman. It was a direct extension of the Left's complete neglect of Yoav Yitzhak's and Ayala Hasson's revelations about Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit and former State Attorney Shai Nitzan.

The past week has illustrated the "three no's" of the Israeli Left: No to peace, no to equality, and no to fighting corruption. The masquerade ball is over. It appears there are no higher values behind the Left's pathos of sanctimonious outrage – just propaganda hatchets to be wielded when it suits. The Left's goal was and remains power – the power to safeguard and ensure the rights of the traditional Israeli elites.

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The High Court of Justice has ruled that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can head the government despite his legal troubles, and despite warnings to the contrary, Netanyahu is standing trial for his alleged transgressions.

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The Left has eulogized Israeli democracy hundreds of times over the past two years, sounding alarms and making apocalyptic predictions. But Israeli democracy has a mind of its own and it refuses to obey the Left's orders to perish.

If there is an obvious conclusion from our democracy's surviving the countless premature rumors of its death, it is that these are not cries of outrage or the expression of an authentic fear Israeli democracy is nearing its demise, but rather this is a frustrated and artificial campaign orchestrated by the left.

Someone is apparently jealous of the wave of violent protest sweeping across the United States and is trying to inject some revolutionary energy into the lethargic Israeli Left.

But the latter is too content to stage any real revolution, nor will the Israeli public be sympathetic to images of protesters vandalizing the statues of our nation's founders, or any other show of looting or violence. Then again, the Israeli Left has its own way to usurp the media's attention to try and undermine political stability.

If any of the Left's protest campaigns gain actual traction it will be because it is able to frame its frustration as pan-Israeli rage. Defense Minister Benny Gantz already tweeted about the "impending demise" of Israeli democracy, again exposing how the radical Left is able to come full circle and meet the mainstream Left.

The Left's protest may be artificial but under the right conditions, it could meet its objective and rattle our hard-earned political stability.

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In their brief ruling, Justices Ofer Grosskopf, Menachem Mazuz and David Mintz issued interim and conditional injunctions against the state and against the appointments of Iris Stark, vice president of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Israel, and former National Security Adviser Jacob Nagel to the advisory committee on appointments of senior public servants.

The political and publicized petition filed by the Movement for Integrity didn't include even one legal argument justifying such a far-reaching measure, and it grossly undermines the public interest in ensuring proper protocol in the IDF and police. Despite the fact that the petitioners failed to present any substantial factual argument that would necessitate a legal decision of this type, the justices chose yet again to infringe on the government's obvious jurisdiction.

The petitioners didn't provide nary an indication of possible conflicting interests or even a reasonable explanation for objecting to Nagel's appointment. Regarding Stark, the primary argument against her appointment was her failure to report a 5,000-shekel donation she gave Minister Gila Gamliel in 2012. Which begs the question, why does Stark's small donation from years ago constitute such a grave conflict of interest as to warrant her removal from the consultation committee?

What's worse, the petitioners argue that Stark and Nagel's extensive public experience, which includes working with and for government bodies, disqualifies them from advising the government.

In other words: The justices adopted the absurd position that vast experience in the public sector disqualifies a person from advising on senior appointments in the public sector. Kafka couldn't have said it better.

The absurdity reached record proportions as the justices defiantly ignored the fact that the petition deals with appointing members of the advisory committee – whose job is to help the government make senior appointments – rather than the committee with the authority to make the actual appointments. The advisory committee was established to help the government, not restrict it. Now, in the name of "protecting" the committee, the court has tied the government's hands and stripped it of its undeniable authorities.

The creation of the advisory committee, it's important to note, was strictly a government initiative and it's completely within the government's purview to disband it and return to the previously accepted process whereby members of the government decided alone on appointments. Thus, for example, Yehuda Weinstein was appointed attorney general in 2009 without the advisory committee's recommendation due to a lack of agreement among its members. It appears the justices have now pushed the government into a corner of having to make a similar decision – all to protect the public's interest proper adherence to protocol within vital governmental bodies.

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Golan's somewhat ambiguously worded statement shines a light on complex dilemmas and warrants public discourse. Where, in Golan's view, is the line between the need to avoid harming an uninvolved civilian population at all costs, and putting soldiers' lives at risk?

This is more than a theoretical exercise. There have been dozens of instances in recent decades – such as the battle in Jenin's refugee camp during Operation Defensive Shield – when IDF soldiers paid with their lives because they were deployed house-to-house in a condensed urban environment, instead of shelling an area in advance or using bulldozers for the same job.

Galon apparently believes bereaved parents and Im Tirzu don't have the right to ask whether IDF commanders erred in these instances. Merely questioning the matter led Galon to claim Im Tirzu members "won't calm down until they turn the IDF into a militia of Cossacks."

While Golan's remarks were generalized and open to interpretation, Galon's position on the dilemma is unequivocal: If you don't want to become a Cossack militia, you must categorically prefer risking soldiers' lives over the lives of Palestinian civilians.

Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer and Roy Konfino have already put this sentiment into writing. In an article published on the Israel Democracy Institute website, they argued that "to uphold the required moral standard, the state must view the other side's civilians as if they were Israeli civilians, and thus maintain the distinction between combatants and noncombatants." According to Kremnitzer – who leans on the ruminations of American political theorist Michael Walzer – once a soldier agrees to enlist and risk his life, he is a more legitimate military target than uninvolved enemy civilians.

And while Galon sees Im Tirzu members as a bunch of Cossacks for merely debating the issue, the person who penned the IDF's ethical code, Professor Asa Kasher, holds a completely different view. In battle, according to Kasher, the state's duty is to try distinguishing between the enemy's combatants and its civilians. However: "Once it has exhausted its efforts to distinguish between terrorists and nearby enemy civilians – and can no longer do so to the greatest extent possible – not only is the state not obligated to risk the lives of its soldiers in another attempt to make this distinction, it is prohibited from doing so just to minimize the danger posed to the terrorist's neighbors."

From this angle, it seems Walzer and Kremnitzer's stance is morally problematic. Human morality is founded on reciprocity; and in the Israeli context of serving in the Israel Defense Forces, it is predicated on the principle of mutual guarantee. When an Israeli enlists for compulsory service and then joins the reserves, he is prepared to risk his life for his comrades and in defense of his country's civilians, and he trusts his comrades and fellow countrymen to do the same for him. IDF soldiers help others by willingly putting themselves in harm's way, and in turn they receive that same protection from their comrades. This is a balanced and equal mechanism of mutual guarantees.

Unlike the distinction made by Walzer and Kremnitzer, there is no moral equivalence between a terrorist and IDF soldier just because they are both "combatants." The terrorist intentionally seeks to harm civilians, while the soldier is essentially a civilian who has enlisted and agreed to risk himself to defend his people and his state. A soldier's willingness to walk in harm's way is worthy of commendation, not condemnation, and he never belongs on the same moral plain as a terrorist. Just as the state is duty bound to protect its civilians, it must also protect its soldiers as much as possible, even at the cost of endangering enemy civilians.

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Theoretically, this principle should be familiar to us from civics lessons. But in a time when media outlets bombard us with claims of "dangerous legislation"; when corruption scandals hijack the public agenda; when hundreds of journalists make careers out of criticizing the Knesset and the government – the same media are demonstrating a dangerous blindness to the looming dangers to our freedom from law enforcement and the judicial branch.

In Israel, there is no balance of power between the branches of government. Note the number of systems actively working to keep the Knesset and the government from exploiting their power: The public can have Knesset members replaced; the High Court has the authority to repeal enacted laws or actions taken by the government; instructions from the attorney general have turned from recommendations into orders; the attorney general is also the state prosecutor and can order investigations against MKs and government ministers and put them on trial; the battle against corruption has become the police's top priority; the state comptroller is mostly busy criticizing the government; and of course, the media and NGOs are always looking around to discover what the government and legislators have done wrong.

But what systems of oversight exist to prevent officials in the justice system or the police from exploiting their own power? Are there any strong, independent institutions that have a prerogative to expose problems in the activity of officials in the Investigations and Intelligence Branch of the Israel Police or in the State Attorney's Office?

The answer should make us all uncomfortable. There are no institutions in Israel that have any "teeth." The Israel Police can arrest and interrogate Israeli citizens, obstructing their freedom;  the State Attorney's Office can serve absurd indictments that ignore some pieces of evidence and emphasize others; the investigative unit and the State Attorney's Office can set their own, independent agenda and invest enormous amounts in secret investigations while ignore much worse scandals; serious cases involving judges or officials from the prosecution vanish without being investigated.

True, there are two entities that are supposed to provide institutional oversight: the police's internal investigations department and the Commission for Prosecutorial Oversight. But their work is laughable. About two weeks ago, it came to light that the new head of internal investigations in the police, Keren Bar Menachem, had said in closed-door discussions that the role of her new department was to serve the police force. Meanwhile, the commission's authority has been severely curtailed as a result of a strike by prosecutors. The "gatekeepers" who wage war on Knesset members and cabinet ministers have bullied their way into preventing even minimal oversight of their own actions.

We are left with only one mechanism: parliamentary oversight of Knesset committees. But there, too, things are bad. In the U.S., members of Congress have the authority to summon and question witnesses and request copies of protocols, email correspondence, and schedules of meetings. Failure to cooperate is considered a crime. On the other hand, even if MKs have the authority on paper to demand answers from civil servants like the state attorney or the police commissioner, the subjects of their criticism can thumb their noses at them.

Only last week, the attorney general instructed officials from the State Prosecutor's office and the Israel Police not to show up for a discussion in the Knesset House Committee on the matter of the investigations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being tainted. This is an example of the most serious threat to democratic rule in Israel today: the lack of appropriate checks and balances on hugely powerful government entities.

The $64,000 question is who will keep an eye on the gatekeepers? As of today, the answer is no one. We are supposed to have blind faith in the most powerful government bodies in any modern state, in institutions that threaten our freedom and run roughshod not only over law and justice, but also our political liberty and our sovereignty. We need to fix this.

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Under the guise of an anti-corruption campaign, the Israeli Left wants all of us to be obsessed with the latest gossip on the Prime Minister's Residence, to lose the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, and to blur the distinction between proper public oversight and a vicious witch hunt against the family members of a political adversary.

As far as the Left is concerned, the end justifies the mean. Vile rhetoric is now a worthy value, with two protagonists leading the charge and preaching us morality: left-wing activity Eldad Yaniv and the former superintendent at the Prime Minister's Residence, Meni Naftali.

Anyone who reads the indictment against Sara Netanyahu objectively would come to the conclusion that it is legally flawed, deals with petty accusations and, in light of previous precedents, is unfair. If takeout meals valued at 350,000 shekels ($98,000) are worthy of thousands of hours of news broadcasts, how can we justify the tens of millions of shekels worth of wasteful spending under left-wing premierships?

Two cases show that, according to the Left, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his family must be subject to a different set of rules and regulations.

In 2015, the State Comptroller's Office released a scathing report on former President Shimon Peres' expenses. That damning report showed that the President's Residence systematically overspent its budget by an average of about 20%, resulting in special supplemental funding worth tens of millions. But no one has heard of this, and not a single police investigation has been launched on the matter.

What about prime ministers from the Left? Surprise, surprise: They too have been treated with kid gloves by the press despite troubling findings.
Israel Hayom reporter Akiva Bigman shed some light on the expenses of both Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert while in office.

It turns out that Olmert spent some 30,000 shekels ($8,300) on takeout from a Jerusalem hotel to celebrate Passover, almost half the total expenses for takeout under the Netanyahus in 2010. Sharon in 2001 ordered takeout worth some 12,500 shekels ($3,400) from a Jerusalem hotel to the Prime Minister's Residence, and additional "snacks for hosting purposes at his ranch" worth some 8,000 shekels ($2,210). Thus, 20,000 shekels ($5,500) in three months.

What about the expense accounts for the widows of deceased presidents? Reuma Weizman, widow of President Ezer Weizman, and Ora Herzog, widow of President Chaim Herzog, have their lifestyles funded to a large extent by the state every year.

These expenses include 223,000 shekels ($62,700) for a driver, 97,000 shekels ($27,000) for house maintenance, 6,000 shekels ($1,600) for a phone line, 100,000 shekels($28,000)  for housing in assisted living facilities, and 19,000 shekels ($5,200) for various other expenses.

I believe such funding is perfectly fine, but that is beside the point. What is infuriating is that the media refuses to look at the big picture and insists on scrutinizing how much dry-cleaning the Netanyahus ordered.

Here is another statistic: Two years ago, Likud was polling at 25 Knesset seats. Now, after months of media coverage on so-called scandals involving everything from champagne to furniture, Likud is polling at 35 seats.  The media-led campaign aimed at destroying Netanyahu has hurt everyone but Netanyahu. His standing has increased immeasurably.

For the Israeli public, this witch hunt has shown that Israel is undergoing a severe crisis of corruption and abuse of power, but not in the Prime Minister's Residence. The crisis, it turns out, is in the media and the Israel Police.

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