Netanyahu’s Chessboard, the Prosecutors’ Clock
In one day, three stories show how Israel’s legal system moves to a political schedule — and how often that schedule points at the right‑wing camp.
First: Case 2000 — the corruption file about Benjamin Netanyahu’s alleged quid pro quo with Arnon “Noni” Mozes, publisher of the mass‑market daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
The supposed deal: friendlier coverage in Yedioth if Netanyahu helped pass a “softened” Israel Hayom law, a bill designed to choke Israel Hayom, the free pro‑Netanyahu paper bankrolled by Sheldon Adelson and eating Mozes’s market share.
Zeev Elkin, a senior Likud politician, is mentioned in the indictment around that law but appears in court as a defense witness.
With Netanyahu sitting in the room, Elkin calls him “a chess player” and says it was clear “the person moving the pieces opposite him was Noni Mozes.”
The country’s leader is treating media legislation as part of a private negotiation with a powerful publisher, and a key ally now describes the whole thing as a board game.
Second: District Court Judge Ron Sulkin from Lod recounts how prosecutors timed their push against Michael Ben‑Ari.
Ben‑Ari is a far‑right, Kahanist politician whom Israel’s Supreme Court had already banned from running in the April 2019 election for anti‑Arab racist incitement.
Sulkin describes how, about two months before that 21st Knesset vote, the prosecution pressed police to urgently gather materials against Ben‑Ari, explicitly citing the election campaign as the reason for the rush — those materials then helped disqualify his run.
Only later did a separate criminal probe open, with the prosecution, which is not supposed to be the primary investigative arm, effectively dictating the questions and steering the interrogation.
The clock on the wall here isn’t legal; it’s electoral, and it’s ticking toward keeping a far‑right candidate off the ballot.
Third: the High Court wipes out the appointment of Yehuda Eliyahu as director of the Israel Land Authority, a key ally of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The Authority isn’t a minor agency; it controls most of the state land in Israel, a core lever of power in housing and infrastructure.
The Court cancels Eliyahu’s appointment “due to his connection to Smotrich,” throws out the government decision and the selection process, and orders a reset under civil‑service rules just days before this government’s term ends.
The post was openly used as a political prize; the ruling treats that politicization itself as the problem.
The pattern is sharper than “politics influences law.” In Case 2000, prosecutors pursue a sitting prime minister over a media‑legislation deal with a dominant publisher.
In the Ben‑Ari episode, they race the campaign calendar to keep a far‑right figure off the ballot and later run his criminal questioning from behind the scenes.
In the Eliyahu ruling, the Supreme Court strips a hard‑right minister’s camp of direct control over the country’s land manager because the appointment was overtly partisan.
Different mechanisms, one direction of travel: a system grinding against right‑wing power centers — the prime minister, a Kahanist candidate, and a Smotrich loyalist — and moving its hands whenever the political clock chimes.
#israel #Netanyahu #Mozes #BenAri #Smotrich #courts #prosecution #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy
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In one day, three stories show how Israel’s legal system moves to a political schedule — and how often that schedule points at the right‑wing camp.
First: Case 2000 — the corruption file about Benjamin Netanyahu’s alleged quid pro quo with Arnon “Noni” Mozes, publisher of the mass‑market daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
The supposed deal: friendlier coverage in Yedioth if Netanyahu helped pass a “softened” Israel Hayom law, a bill designed to choke Israel Hayom, the free pro‑Netanyahu paper bankrolled by Sheldon Adelson and eating Mozes’s market share.
Zeev Elkin, a senior Likud politician, is mentioned in the indictment around that law but appears in court as a defense witness.
With Netanyahu sitting in the room, Elkin calls him “a chess player” and says it was clear “the person moving the pieces opposite him was Noni Mozes.”
The country’s leader is treating media legislation as part of a private negotiation with a powerful publisher, and a key ally now describes the whole thing as a board game.
Second: District Court Judge Ron Sulkin from Lod recounts how prosecutors timed their push against Michael Ben‑Ari.
Ben‑Ari is a far‑right, Kahanist politician whom Israel’s Supreme Court had already banned from running in the April 2019 election for anti‑Arab racist incitement.
Sulkin describes how, about two months before that 21st Knesset vote, the prosecution pressed police to urgently gather materials against Ben‑Ari, explicitly citing the election campaign as the reason for the rush — those materials then helped disqualify his run.
Only later did a separate criminal probe open, with the prosecution, which is not supposed to be the primary investigative arm, effectively dictating the questions and steering the interrogation.
The clock on the wall here isn’t legal; it’s electoral, and it’s ticking toward keeping a far‑right candidate off the ballot.
Third: the High Court wipes out the appointment of Yehuda Eliyahu as director of the Israel Land Authority, a key ally of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The Authority isn’t a minor agency; it controls most of the state land in Israel, a core lever of power in housing and infrastructure.
The Court cancels Eliyahu’s appointment “due to his connection to Smotrich,” throws out the government decision and the selection process, and orders a reset under civil‑service rules just days before this government’s term ends.
The post was openly used as a political prize; the ruling treats that politicization itself as the problem.
The pattern is sharper than “politics influences law.” In Case 2000, prosecutors pursue a sitting prime minister over a media‑legislation deal with a dominant publisher.
In the Ben‑Ari episode, they race the campaign calendar to keep a far‑right figure off the ballot and later run his criminal questioning from behind the scenes.
In the Eliyahu ruling, the Supreme Court strips a hard‑right minister’s camp of direct control over the country’s land manager because the appointment was overtly partisan.
Different mechanisms, one direction of travel: a system grinding against right‑wing power centers — the prime minister, a Kahanist candidate, and a Smotrich loyalist — and moving its hands whenever the political clock chimes.
#israel #Netanyahu #Mozes #BenAri #Smotrich #courts #prosecution #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy
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