Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to take the stand for the first time on Tuesday under court order in his long-running corruption trial, forcing him to vacillate between the courtroom and the war room for weeks. Could.
Israel has been waging a war against the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza for more than a year, during which Netanyahu was granted time to begin appearing in court. But on Thursday judges ruled that he must begin testifying.
Netanyahu will testify three times a week on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, the court said, despite potential new threats posed by the Gaza war and broader turmoil in the Middle East, including in neighboring Syria.
Netanyahu was convicted in 2019 on three counts, including accepting gifts from millionaire friends and allegedly seeking regulatory benefits for a media tycoon in exchange for favorable coverage. He denies any wrongdoing.
Ahead of his court date, Netanyahu revived familiar pre-war rhetoric against law enforcement, characterizing the investigation against him as witchcraft. He has denied the allegations and declared himself innocent.
“The real threat to democracy in Israel is posed not by the public’s elected representatives, but by some of the law enforcement authorities, who refuse to accept the voters’ choice and try to counter the coup with harsh political scrutiny. Which is unacceptable in any form of democracy,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
At a press conference on Monday night, Netanyahu said he had waited eight years to be able to tell his story and expressed outrage at the way witnesses were treated during the investigation.
Before the war, Netanyahu’s legal troubles deeply divided Israelis and rocked Israeli politics through five rounds of elections. His government’s efforts last year to curb the powers of the judiciary further polarized Israelis.
Hamas’s shock attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent Gaza war pushed Netanyahu’s trial off the public agenda as Israelis came together in grief and shock. But as the war progressed, political unity broke down.
In recent weeks, while fighting on one front subsided after Israel reached a ceasefire with Hamas’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah, members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, including his justice and police ministers, clashed with the judiciary. Are.
Netanyahu, 75, in power almost continuously since 2009, is Israel’s longest-serving leader and its first sitting prime minister to be charged with a crime.
His domestic legal battle was further complicated last month when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for him and his former defense chief Yoav Galant, as well as the Hamas leader, for alleged war crimes in the Gaza conflict.
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