Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been indicted on multiple charges, including bribery and breach of trust, related to three cases of corruption and favor trading.
Israel’s attorney general on Thursday formally charged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a series of corruption cases, throwing the country’s paralyzed political system into further disarray and threatening the long-time leader’s grip on power.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit charged Netanyahu with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three different scandals. It is the first time a sitting Israeli prime minister has been charged with a crime. Mandelblit was set to issue a formal statement later Thursday.
Allegations against Netanyahu include suspicions he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of champagne and cigars from billionaire friends, offered to trade favors with a newspaper publisher and used his influence to help a wealthy telecom magnate in exchange for favorable coverage on a popular news site.
The indictment does not require Netanyahu to resign but is expected to raise pressure on him to step down.
I'd have to say he's done, especially due to his inability to form a government because of the pending charges. Now that those pending charges are no longer pending, the calls for his resignation will hopefully be too much for him to survive politically.
And let's keep in mind this is a straight-up bribery case: Netanyahu is being charged with personally taking goods and services of value in exchange for political favors. If this sounds familiar, it's the flip side of what Donald Trump did with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Trump offered a bribe, whereas Netanyahu is the one on the receiving end here.
I'm sure since Republicans tell us Donald Trump is so interested in fighting corruption in other countries by crooked leaders, and that Trump has sole discretion to hold up foreign aid to countries who are not meeting high standards of conduct, that a Prime Minister indicted for bribery would be cause to freeze all foreign aid to Israel, right?
Right?
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