Blue and White leader Benny Gantz warned on Saturday night that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has plans to cancel his trial for alleged corruption and bribery by replacing the attorney-general.
רביב דרוקר מסביר - כמה קל לפטר את היועמ"ש ולבטל את המשפט. זו המזימה של נתניהו, ורק אני וכחול לבן בכנסת נמנע את זה ממנו. pic.twitter.com/I5eey3U7aD
— בני גנץ - Benny Gantz (@gantzbe) March 20, 2021
“How easy it is to dismiss the attorney-general and cancel the trial,” Gantz tweeted Saturday night. “This is Netanyahu’s scheme – and only I and Blue and White in the Knesset will prevent him from doing it.”
The tweet includes footage from the Channel 13 Saturday evening news program in which analyst Raviv Drucker claimed all Netanyahu has to do is to replace the attorney-general in a government decision.
“No French Law is needed to do that,” he explained. “[Yamina leader Naftali] Bennett does not have to vote in favor of it: He can even object to it if he wants to.”
The so-called French Law is the proposal that serving prime ministers would be immune from being indicted for corruption while in office just as the French president is. Netanyahu has said publicly that he will not pass such a law, but might not prevent others from doing so. Drucker was describing a possibility that, following the elections, Bennett could form a coalition with Netanyahu.
“All that the new attorney-general has to do is ask to review the materials about the trial,” Drucker explained, adding that, should the High Court of Justice inquire what right the attorney-general has to cancel an ongoing trial, this “imaginary” replacement could always claim he did not cancel anything and is merely examining the evidence.
Gantz’s tweet, two days before Tuesday's elections, arrives following several media reports about how Likud activists attempted to lie to pollsters to present a false façade that Blue and White enjoys wider support than it actually does.
The idea was to lead Gantz into a false sense of confidence and lead his party into not passing the electoral threshold, which would cost the center-left voting block tens of thousands of possible votes.