Benjamin Netanyahu appears in court for first time in anti-corruption trial

Over four years after it began, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the witness stand on Tuesday for the first time to give testimony in his long-running corruption trial.

Netanyahu, 75, has been widely accused of using Israel’s various regional wars as a way of either avoiding giving evidence in the trial or even ending it completely. 

Last month he reportedly asked Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, to help him get out of testifying, arguing that it would be a security risk for him to be in a known location for an extended period. 

Israel’s longest-serving leader and its defining politician, who now heads a government dependent on key members of the country’s far-right settler movement, is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to be charged with a crime.

Charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, Netanyahu will testify three times a week, the court said, despite Israel’s war on Gaza, the fragile ceasefire in Lebanon and its incursions into Syria. 

The Palestinian death toll in besieged Gaza rose to 44,758 on Tuesday, as Israel shows no sign of stopping the bloodshed.

Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 in three cases involving gifts from millionaire friends and for allegedly seeking regulatory favours for media tycoons in return for favourable coverage. He denies any wrongdoing.

'I have been waiting for eight years for this moment to tell the truth... I am leading the country through a seven-front war. And I think the two can be done in parallel'

- Benjamin Netanyahu

The prime minister arrived at Tel Aviv District Court at around 10am local time on Tuesday morning, wearing a dark blue suit and white shirt, with an Israeli flag pin on one label and a yellow ribbon symbolising the hostages held in Gaza on the other. 

“I have been waiting for eight years for this moment to tell the truth,” Netanyahu told the three judges hearing the case in an underground courtroom, according to Reuters. “But I am also a prime minister… I am leading the country through a seven-front war. And I think the two can be done in parallel.”

Before Netanyahu took the stand, his lawyer Amit Hadad told judges that there were fundamental flaws in the case against his client, and that prosecutors “weren’t investigating a crime, they were going after a person.”

Outside the courtroom, a few dozen protesters had gathered, some of them supporters and others - including family members of the roughly 100 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza - calling for Netanyahu to stop obstructing a deal to bring those hostages home.

Alon Pinkas, a prominent Israeli diplomat, told Middle East Eye Netanyahu’s appearance in court was “significant but not critical since his testimony will take months”.

Cigars, champagne and jewellery 

Of the various allegations levelled at Netanyahu, the most eye-catching involve the receipt of nearly $200,000 worth of gifts from a billionaire Hollywood film producer.

Arnon Milchan, an Israeli businessman, film producer and former spy, took the stand last June to describe how he routinely delivered tens of thousands of dollars worth of champagne, cigars and other gifts requested by Netanyahu. 

According to the court indictment, Milchan, whose production credits include hits such as Pretty Woman and 12 Years a Slave, gave Netanyahu and his wife boxes of cigars, jewellery and crates of champagne over a period of several years. 

On the eve of his testimony, Netanyahu was typically bullish in his defence, describing his investigation as a witch hunt and claiming that for “eight years I’ve been waiting for this day. Eight years I have waited to present the truth.”

“The real threat to democracy in Israel is not posed by the public’s elected representatives, but by some among the law enforcement authorities who refuse to accept the voters’ choice and are trying to carry out a coup with rabid political investigations that are unacceptable in any democracy,” he added in a statement.

Netanyahu’s son, Yair, has compared those investigating his father to Nazi Germany’s Gestapo and East Germany’s Stasi.  

Before Israel’s war on Gaza began in the wake of the 7 October Hamas-led attacks, Netanyahu’s legal troubles bitterly divided Israelis and shook the country’s politics through five rounds of elections. 

His government’s bid last year to curb powers of the judiciary further polarised Israelis, but the shock of the Hamas-led attacks and the ensuing war swept Netanyahu’s trial off the public agenda as the country united.

In recent weeks, though, members of Netanyahu’s cabinet have clashed with Israel’s judiciary and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has heaped further legal jeopardy onto Netanyahu by issuing arrest warrants for him and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant. 

Both men are charged by the ICC with alleged war crimes. Nevertheless, an Israeli security source told MEE they expected Netanyahu to remain in power in the short to medium term.