Yom Reva’ee
Wednesday
2 Sivan 5782
June 1 2022
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
A female terrorist tried to stab soldiers at Al-Aruv this morning with the result:
Another thwarted stabbing attack in Judea this morning.
By the way, the terrorist had previously tried to stab Israelis at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron and had been imprisoned for several months before being recently released by a lenient judge.
Elsewhere, Palestinian terrorists attacked Israelis with Molotovs and “rocks” at Ofra, Shrekya, on Road 55 near Punduk, Kiryat Arba, and Tekoa among other places.
Another day, more coalition crises . . .
Hardly a day passes that the current coalition government does not face another internal crisis.
This morning, PM Bennett is trying to solve:
—the problems between the Blue and White Party and the Labor Party over public transportation reform
—the problem between Finance Minister Liberman and the Yamina Party over Liberman’s plan to drastically cut yeshiva budgets
—the situation that Justice Minister Gideon Saar is demanding that the government immediately re-extend Israeli law to Area C of Judea and Samaria for another 5 years. For the government to do this, the Islamist Ra’am Party must vote in favor.
The latter problem is the most pressing as Sa’ar is apparently meeting with Likud representatives about forming another government without having to call for elections. Without extension of the law, Israelis living in Area C face the prospect of losing their health insurance, national insurance, and many other rights.
TODAY’S BLOG
The Netanyahu Trial “Case 4000” Fiasco
The trial of former PM Netanyahu drags on.
We have reported on elements of this trial (Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000) repeatedly.
Of the three cases, Case 4000 is the most serious because it alleges bribery. More specifically, prosecutors claim that Bezeq Communications owner Shaul Elovitch received favorable business considerations from the Communications Ministry (Netanyahu was Minister of Communications at the time in addition to being Prime Minister) in exchange for favorable press coverage for Netanyahu in Walla!
The entire bribery case depends primarily on the memory of state witness Shlomo Filber who has testified that Netanyahu instructed him to make the deal with Elovitch during a meeting between himself and Netanyahu in the Prime Minister’s Office during the first week of June 2015. The indictment specifically mentions that date.
The only problem is that no meeting between Filber and Netanyahu took place at that time. Netanyahu’s defense has presented detailed evidence this past week using the security logs from the Prime Minister’s Office and GPS cellphone data from Filber’s phone to show that the first time Filber ever met with Netanyahu in his office was on June 15. In fact, the evidence shows that Filber was at a family event when he testified he was meeting with Netanyahu.
Now, Filber has backtracked and testified that his recollection was a reconstruction and not a specific memory.
The entire episode has called into question the accuracy of all of Filber’s testimony, and this week the prosecution sought to minimize the damage by changing the indictment to remove the date on which the supposed meeting between Filber and Netanyahu took place.
Yesterday, in a dramatic development, the Court rejected the prosecution attempt to change the indictment and at the same time harshly chastised the prosecution for its sloppy lack of diligence in checking Filber’s story.
Where the trial goes from here is anyone’s guess. One theory today is that the bribery charge may be dropped with the sole remaining charge in Case 4000 being “breach of trust.”
The entire episode calls attention to the ridiculous state of affairs in the Israel judicial system. The simple fact is that the police and prosecution have come to rely almost solely on the testimony of what are termed “state witnesses” instead of actual evidence. According to an article in Israel Hayom today, 25 such “state witness” agreements have been signed by the state in the last two years alone.
The same article quotes prominent lawyer Ilan Tennenbaum: “The data explains why almost every significant investigation is opened in attempts to locate a state witness, instead of locating relevant evidence. The frequent use of state witnesses is disturbing. [Often the witness] is a criminal who is required to ‘supply goods’ in exchange for receiving benefits. Since it is in his interest to provide as much incriminating information as possible, it is natural that not all of the information he will provide will be reliable, a fact that increases the fear of false convictions.”
Despite all of the above, your humble servant is under no illusion that Netanyahu will be found innocent. His is a kangaroo court where the verdict was decided long ago.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.