Trump and Netanyahu, Separated at Birth: Indicted Bibi Asks Knesset for Immunity From Corruption Charges
January 2, 2019
Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu (10 Downing Street)
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH
In November, Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit officially indicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (now serving his fourth term), on charges of accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust. Meanwhile, Netanyahu continues to serve as prime minister, while Israel will undergo an unprecedented third election in less than a year, on March 2. This time, the electorate will decide if an Indicted Netanyahu should remain prime minister.
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In order, to preempt any attempt to remove him if convicted, should he win the third election, Netanyahu is requesting that the Israeli Knesset (parliament) vote to grant him immunity from the Israeli justice department charges.
"I will come to court and quash all the ridiculous libels against me," Netanyahu said, according to the Jerusalem Post. "The immunity law is intended to protect elected officials from manufactured cases, and guarantee that those elected by the people can serve the people according to their will and not the will of the legal officials."
Benny Gantz, of the Kahol Levon (Blue and White) Party has been the opposition leader battling Netanyahu to form a coalition government. Gantz, in the Jerusalem Post article, responded: “I never thought I would see a prime minister evade prosecution. It's either the kingdom of Netanyahu or the State of Israel.”
Trump, Netanyahu’s soulmate in corruption, demagoguery and duplicity, has been given a get out of jail card based on a Department of Justice memorandum, written in 1973, which concludes that a sitting president cannot be indicted. (Although, the memo has never been fully litigated, so it is still not definitively considered a law.) But, it is clear that Netanyahu wants the same protection from legal prosecution for corruption that Trump has currently been able to get away with.
According to a January 1 NPR article,
Netanyahu made the announcement in a televised speech. In the past, he signaled that he would not need to seek immunity from parliament, saying the charges against him — made official last month — were politically motivated and wouldn't hold up.
It certainly sounds similar to Trump’s defensive assertions that impeachment is partisan and the Mueller Report proved, he has asserted, “a deep state” conspiracy against him..
Like Trump, Netanyahu’s long rein has been closely tied to demagogic statements and actions.
Trump and Netanyahu are both highly skilled at exploiting grievance, resentment and, most significantly, fear.
There are many similarities in how they conduct politics, but the key issue for the moment is how Trump’s and Netanyahu’s corruption is in the hands of the legislative branch.
A January 1 article in The Jerusalem Post noted,
Netanyahu said the public had not been told the facts behind the cases against him, due to injunctions that prevented them from being printed.
In the 71-point letter written by Netanyahu’s lawyers Yossi Ashkenazi and Amit Hadad, the prime minister professed his innocence and asked for immunity on the grounds that he was singled out unfairly and that prosecuting him would harm the functioning of the government and Knesset.
Hasn’t Trump made a similar argument about the “perils” of his being removed from office?
The NPR article concludes:
The prime minister won his party's primary in late December, but Israeli political analyst Gayil Talshir told All Things Considered's Ari Shapiro that the results looked bad for Netanyahu.
"Even if Netanyahu does get the majority in the March elections, what we saw yesterday in the primaries is deep, deep disdain with Netanyahu, even on the right," Talshir said. "Netanyahu made his choice, and he is for a Jewish state, even if it is on the expense of being a democracy. And I think the majority of Israelis cannot actually accept that."
Like Trump, Netanyahu will project his corruption, lies and authoritarian gambits onto others. Both of them are facing reckonings this year; both of them are “strong men” who complain about their “victimhood”: both of them put their personal political and financial interests above the needs of the state.
They are two corrupt peas in a rotting pod.
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