Tick-Tock for Netanyahu?

The months-long criminal investigation into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had a decent amount of smoke, but very little fire. But with the revelation that the investigation now explicitly includes bribery and fraud, we may be starting to see some sparks. As The Times of Israel reports:

Israeli police on Thursday for the first time explicitly said that a number of corruption investigations involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deal with “bribery, fraud and breach of trust,” stopping short of saying that the Israeli leader was directly suspected of these crimes, even as a gag order was imposed on details pertaining to the cases.

An Israeli court approved a police request to place a gag order on details surrounding a former Netanyahu aide, Ari Harow, turning state’s witnessas part of two criminal investigations where the prime minister is a key suspect.

“Case 2000,” as it has been dubbed by police, involves a suspected quid pro quo deal between Netanyahu and Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes in which the two seemed to discuss an illicit agreement that would have seen the prime minister hobble a rival daily, the Sheldon Adelson-backed Israel Hayom, in return for more favorable coverage from Yedioth [….] The gag order also affects “Case 1000”, in which the prime minister and his wife are suspected of receiving illicit gifts from billionaire benefactors, most notably hundreds of thousands of shekels’ worth of cigars and champagne […]

Even if the gag order “stops short” of naming him as the target of the bribery and fraud investigation, the writing is on the wall: this is about Bibi. Netanyahu, who has been questioned multiple times in the investigation, has long insisted that these were just innocent gifts from wealthy supporters. Given how closely his success has been tied to the support of wealthy foreign backers, it would be a deep irony if those connections brought him down. In 2012, 90% of his campaign money came from the United States. The recorded discussion of a quid-pro-quo with the publisher of Yedioth Ahronoth might well have been enabled by the fact that Sheldon Adelson and Israel Hayom are themselves so pro-Netanyanu. Netanyahu plays this kind of hardball politics better than anyone else, but it would be easy to imagine that he might have crossed a line.

It’s too early to know whether or not this investigation will bring Netanyahu down, but his former aide potentially turning state’s witness is not a good sign for Israel’s second longest serving prime minister. Even if he emerges from the investigation without being charged, his rivals might seek to edge him out. The new leader of the Labor Party, Avi Gabbay, is a centrist businessman of Moroccan descent who might just be able to make the Israeli Left relevant again. Much of Netanyahu’s own political maneuvering has been designed to ward off pressure on his right from Education Minister Naftali Bennet and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Netanyahu has long succeeded in beating back his challengers, but these investigations raise serious doubts about whether he can hold out.

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