A battle too important to be left to Netanyahu

Netanyahu is no saint, but the charges are definitely verging on legal terra incognita and paving the way for further judicial imperialism.

By AMIEL UNGAR
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Naftali Bennett visit an army base on the Golan Heights on November 24 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Naftali Bennett visit an army base on the Golan Heights on November 24
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Those who have followed my columns in The Jerusalem Report are aware that I have repeatedly called upon Netanyahu to step aside. Thus my reaction to Netanyahu’s indictment would seem utterly predictable. If before the indictment I felt Netanyahu should go, the decision by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to prosecute Netanyahu only pushed me further in the same direction.
That conclusion would be mistaken, because when I listed my reasons for urging Netanyahu’s departure, one reason was absent: I did not feel Netanyahu should quit due to corruption charges.
Netanyahu is no saint, but the charges are definitely verging on legal terra incognita and paving the way for further judicial imperialism. Political power attracts money the way spilled sugar on the table attracts ants. The Clinton Foundation recently announced a $16 million operating loss. When Hillary Clinton enjoyed the aura of president in waiting, the foundation was over $300 million in the black. However, once Clinton became yesterday’s politician, even the presumed wunderkind CEO Chelsea Clinton could not arrest the plunge in the foundation’s income.
The Hebrew nexus hon shilton (roughly, money and political power) was not invented by Netanyahu and will not die with him.
The battle cry of Netanyahu’s supporters that his fitness should be decided at the ballot box and not by the courts resonates within the Right. The perception that the legal system is slanted to the left is not the outlier belief of a few conspiracy theorists, but is broadly shared by Israeli nationalists – myself included.
The Left bears the trauma of the Rabin assassination; the Right bears the trauma of the uprooting of the Jewish communities from Gaza and northern Samaria.
In the latter tragedy, Ariel Sharon faced corruption charges far more serious than those announced against Netanyahu, but they miraculously disappeared when the Left received its Israeli Charles de Gaulle. Sharon became “le grand Arik” when, like the French general, he turned on his supporters and bulldozed through a policy that we are still paying for with each round of hostilities with the Gazan terror state.
At the time of Sharon’s “disengagement” from Gaza, Israel TV Channel 12’s lead commentator Amnon Abramovich coined the infamous phrase that Sharon should be “wrapped in cotton wool” (literally like the delicate etrog of the Sukkot holiday) while he did the Left’s dirty work for them.
Many commentators – who could not disguise their elation over Netanyahu’s apparent political demise – went along with Abramovich’s recommendation and became unabashed Sharon cheerleaders. The prosecutors and the courts employed draconian measures to stifle legal dissent until the uprooting went down and Gaza was cleansed of its Jews. Pinchas Wallerstein, the former chairman of the Yesha Settlement Council, said flat out that if Netanyahu did a Sharon by pivoting sharply left, his legal troubles would go away.
For those unfamiliar with the intricacies of nationalist politics, Wallerstein is not a firebrand or confrontation seeker. He took a lot of flak for his role in the Gaza uprooting when he steered a policy of protest short of violent confrontation to avoid civil war, and essentially bowed to the tragic decision.
The gut feeling is that Netanyahu is merely the current target and once he is gone, the same legal mandarins will go after any other nationalist leader and particularly a leader who intends to clip their wings and influence. Therefore, Wallerstein and others argue, we have to back Netanyahu because his fall will have a deterrent effect on any future nationalist politician.
Netanyahu cannily has sought to rally his base around perhaps the one issue that can mobilize even those who have soured on him. The legal deep state exists as it does in other countries. Robed justices are flesh and blood, and therefore have their political points of view. If they didn’t, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would allow herself to retire in favor of a Trump appointee, and we would not have confirmation hearing battles.
Nevertheless, I still think Netanyahu should leave with a presidential pardon in his pocket. Netanyahu is a belated arrival to the cause of governance by reclaiming power from officialdom and,  first and foremost, the legal bureaucracy. He refused to enlist in the battle when his intervention could have been decisive; he did not even lead from behind, but let former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Tourism Minister Yariv Levin lead the charge. His declared opponent in the Likud primary, Gideon Sa’ar, has a more impressive résumé on this issue.
The main problem – to mangle David Lloyd George – is that the battle is too important to be left to General Netanyahu. If Netanyahu could effectively lead on this issue, he could be forgiven his previous irresolution. Making him the poster boy in this political struggle will be a flop, because it will look like he is opportunistically raising the issue to save his political hide. As opposed to Wallerstein, I believe that going down with Netanyahu is the surest method of ensuring our worst nightmare and awarding our opponents a decisive victory.