Netanyahu’s prosecutor-persecutors – sound familiar?
Please read this article by Caroline Glick about recent developments in the Netanyahu trial. Whether or not you’re especially interested in Israel or in Netanyahu himself, you will probably be impressed by the similarities to the actions of Donald Trump’s prosecutors in this country. In some ways, what they tried to do to Netanyahu may even be worse – although we have yet to see the full flowering of what is to come for Trump.
All of it is disturbing and chilling, although in Netanyahu’s case there seems to be a major pause in the proceedings for now, because the case is so very weak. But his enemies are very very determined, so don’t count them out, not by a longshot.
Here’s an excerpt from the beginning, but I suggest you read the whole thing:
On Thursday night, with sunken faces, Channel 13’s legal correspondents delivered the news: The judges presiding over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial for bribery and breach of trust had told the prosecutors and defense attorney last week that the prosecutors have not proven their charge of bribery, and are unlikely to succeed in doing so, since all their major witnesses have already testified.
The implications are earthshattering. For the past seven years, two forces—the state prosecution and the media—have pushed Israel to the brink of civil war in their effort to criminalize Netanyahu and demonize his supporters.
Their goal was never hidden. They seek to oust Netanyahu from public life and disenfranchise his voters by disqualifying and demonizing their elected leader.
Beginning in 2016, through criminal leaks to reporters from every major newspaper, radio station and television channel, state prosecutors, police investigators, journalists and editors invented and shaped a narrative of criminality surrounding Netanyahu and sold it to the public on a daily basis.
We must remember that Israel was Socialist for many years and only turned right with Ariel Sharon, if I remember correctly. My memory may be lacking but it seems to me that the right turn followed the failure of Clinton’s attempt at a Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. I still remember the column by a Clinton aide pointing out that everyone was ready to invest in the Palestinian territory until Arafat walked out.
I was in Israel in 2005 for a specialized two-week tour.
I think Netanyahu spoke to Congress during Trump’s administration.
From everything I know about Netanyahu, I respect him and his leadership.
He seems to be among the few in the world who truly love their countries.
Caroline Glick, like Heather Mac Donald who came up a few posts back, is one of the best journalists working today. If you’re not familiar with her, start googling, and read everything you can by her. She is wonderful.
well begin was the first likud leader, netanyahu is the longest lasting one,
I agree with Mike Plaiss — Caroline Glick is an outstanding journalist. And Bibi Netanyahu is a very good PM, and outstanding for Israel. The manner in which his enemies have gone after him is scandalous, possibly as bad as Trump’s enemies were in going after him.
And for an example of the most shameful way an American president has ever treated a foreign president, look at how Obama treated Netanyahu when they first met.
Mike,
With Menachem Begin at its head, Likud first came to power in 1977.
Even during Israel’s first three decades, the left never had more than 60% support.
whereas their interlocutor, mahmoud abbas has not had an election in 17 years, he was a Soviet trained kgb agent who allegedly funded the munich massacre, whose dissertation was a gobbet of blood libel
The similarities between Netanyahu’s persecutors and Trump’s persecutors are not at all surprising. The Left has never lacked for its Lavrentiy Berias. ‘Progressives’ have but one principle; “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”
No surprise that for them, the end justifies whatever the means necessary.
“Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.” David Horowitz
It’s the Israeli MEDIA who are trying to poison Israeli minds against a PM whose brother gave his life in freeing hostage Jews from Entebbe, Uganda.
We have the same poisonous MEDIA here, going after Trump, who was in performance and decisions much better for America than Billy Boy’s nominal spouse, Hillary, or Barack, neither of them worth much financially except for the result of their government positions. “So I destroyed 33,000 documents from my private server while SOS. So what? What difference does it make now?”
Why are our media almost all leftist? Why?
well there is a degree of public financing in israeli institutions, that carolyn glick has centered on, regarding this witchhunt, even the nominally right leaning jerusalem post (where bret stephens came from) is subject to it,
Yes, there are some similarities, but also significant differences. If I read Glick correctly, Netanyahu has strong arguments that (i) the alleged facts don’t establish a crime; and (ii) the alleged facts are false.
Trump’s key arguments are that (i) with respect to Bragg, the facts alleged only amount to a misdemeanor for which the statute of limitations has run; and (ii) Trump is being selectively prosecuted while others who have done the same thing have not.
In other words, Netanyahu committed no crime. His tormentors are making things up. On the other hand, Trump has made it much easier for his tormenters to do what they will.
Hola from the far side of the Styx.
Be careful out there, everyone. Drinking lots of water is good but that alone won’t do. Stay out of direct sun and try to find wind. Gotta sweat fast enough.
My tale…
On a blistering day last week, the heat hit me with a mallet and I dropped. I’ve been hot before but this time I felt I needed to relinquish control and 911ed to OMC. Around 2PM.
My renals had dropped to 14% and the doc (lovely little Hindi lady) was considering jabbing me for dialysis. She called for a second blood workup and when it came back that evening she looked confused and said I’d already improved enough she nixed it. She couldn’t figure out why I came back that fast but she was happy, as was I.
I wasn’t dehydrated so much as I wasn’t through-putting. I keep a raft of those 64oz fruit jugs frozen and go though 1-2 water/juice jugs a day. Probably should’a done more electrolytes.
Anyhoo, the pumps started working and she released me Saturday. Should be completely fine in a few days. Weak as a kitten right now though.
Keep an eye out. I didn’t feel dried out or fatigued or anything, just dropped.
Shit, apparently I got old.
Oh, by the way — my favorite rendition for tomorrow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSNT5BCP04o
Oligonicella:
Glad you’re okay!
That same thing happened to a relative of mine last summer. She’s okay now but got quite a scare.
Getting older is no joke.
Congratulations Oligonicella on perhaps the most random post in the history of this blog, and that’s saying something. It’s been around a while and there are some exceptionally quirky people here.
But seriously, glad you’re doing better, and great advice. I know, I hike in the desert often.
Great video. I had never heard it. Thanks.
Also, I don’t know why, but, “ Hola from the far side of the Styx.” made me laugh, and it’s one of those things where I couldn’t stop.
Bauxite:
You’re leaving out quite a bit.
Bragg indicted Trump for a completely made-up offense with no victim – this is the indictment that is most like Netanyahu’s. The Georgia prosecutor is planning to indict him for virtually nothing, as well.
The classified documents charges – which I assume are the ones to which you are referring – use the Espionage Act against a president, which is not what the law is supposed to be used for – and in fact the law itself should be unconstitutional anyway. Other charges are the old “lying to federal agents,” obstructing justice – when Trump has been framed and lied about by the very agencies who want to try him for lying to them. These are truly ludicrous charges against a president or ex-president who is dealing with questions about documents that involve his own presidency – and they are not even alleging he harmed anyone or anything by having them or even showing them – if indeed he did show them – to the people in the room that day.
You probably ought to read that book Three Felonies a Day. Most people could be charged with a federal crime. If a prosecutor wants to get someone, there are plenty of ways to do it.
The Israeli left is also in panic mode over Netanyahu’s proposed changes to the way the Israeli Supreme Court works. The court is very powerful in Israel, and has been fully under the sway of the left for decades. It also has a strong say – a literal veto power, in fact – on any new justices picked for the court, as the nine member council that picks new justices has three seats reserved for sitting members of the court (including one for the chief justice), and a potential new justice requires seven members of the council to vote in his or her favor (the other six seats are two from the government, two from the Knesset, and two from the Israeli Bar).
Early this year, Netanyahu proposed a sweeping array of changes to the court. While he’s revised his original proposal and gotten rid of some of the more controversial suggestions (such as allowing the Knesset to override court decisions), one of the parts that he’s keeping is the one that would give the government more say in picking new members of the court. It goes without saying, but the Israeli left is in a panic over this as it could cost them their control of the court.
It is not just old people and heat. I had this happen when I was a teenager. I was in the Civil Air Patrol and the squadron was marching punishment tours for a messy squadron area (cuz teenage boys). It was a very hot and humid day and I had mowed the lawn prior to the meeting so I was spent before we started. I was not expecting punishment. The squadron area was in the old base pistol range and our drill area was the parking lot. It was hot. This AF Sgt was running us back and forth across this hot concrete and he started yelling at me as I started to swoon and was not keeping in formation. He ran over and caught me on the way to a face plant. Ended punishment for everyone though.
The Jerusalem Post is no longer a right-of-center rag, not even nominally.
It kinda fluctuates but it hasn’t been right-of-center for a long time (even since that internationally-renowned pianist was editor-in-chief in the 90s, I think)
Bret Stephens was decent (but look where HE’s been working the last dozen or more years…though why he’s still there is anyone’s guess…perhaps he feels he’s adding “balance”—even if the Gray Lady turtled decades ago….).
The only Israeli right-of-center news orgs at the moment (aside from the more religious-oriented ones) are “Israel Today” and “Israel National News” (AKA Arutz Sheva, i.e., Channel Seven), but the latter could also be characterized as religious-oriented, at least somewhat.
The most popular news organization is, I believe, “The Times of Israel” (website only), but that leans, editorially at least, left of center and as a result is, somewhat maddeningly, less than reliable on the usual political issues…alas (because it’s a generally decent news source).
Victor D. Hanson’s Fourth of July broadside:
“The Bidens’ Existential Threats To The American Rule Of Law…”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bidens-existential-threats-american-rule-law-vdh
But TRUMP!! (I.e., if I’ve understood the never-yielding claim, correctly)….
BTW, a happy Fourth to one and all….
Turley also puts his shoulder to the wheel in defense of the country from Democratic Party TOTALITARIAN AMBITION (continued from the “College Loan Forgiveness…” post further below—
https://www.thenewneo.com/2023/07/01/college-loan-forgiveness-democrats-campaign-on-republicans-are-mean/ ):
“Constitutional Cruelty: Democrats now Oppose a Democratic Process on Student Loans”—
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/07/03/constitutional-cruelty-democrats-now-oppose-a-democratic-process-on-student-loans/
H/T Powerline blog.
Key grafs (RTWT):
‘ “Disappointing and cruel.” Those words from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) after the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Biden administration’s loan forgiveness program….
‘ The court’s “cruelty” was in supporting Congress’s core constitutional power of the purse. Schumer’s disappointment in having to address and vote on the forgiveness of hundreds of billions of dollars in loans speaks volumes about the collapse of our constitutional values.
‘ The court’s decision on the merits of the case was hardly a surprise. President Biden was using the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act of 2003 to order the largest loan forgiveness program in U.S. history. The law is only a few pages long and was intended to assist military personnel deployed abroad in combat zones.
That brings us back to Schumer. James Madison designed a constitutional system with a frank understanding of the factional and petty impulses of politicians. Yet he believed that he had created a system of checks and balances that could rely on the institutional self-interest of members to jealously protect their powers under Article I. Madison believed that, despite party or ideological affiliations, “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”
‘ In all of his study of the ancient Greek and Roman states and contemporary politics, Madison never encountered the likes of Schumer and his colleagues. Their ambition runs elsewhere….They are calling on a president to turn them into institutional nonentities — legislators who engage in a type of empty performance art as the president governs alone.
‘ It is a curious position for those who have campaigned on protecting “democracy.” These same figures are now calling on a president to avoid presenting this major program to Congress because they know that the majority would oppose it.
‘ Ever accommodating, Biden is now saying that he will attempt to accomplish the same loan forgiveness by taking a “new path.”….’
Just another disgusting Democratic Party display.
File under: Bidenesca
+ Bonus:
“AOC Wants Supreme Court Justices Impeached In Retaliation For Doing Their Job”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/aoc-wants-supreme-court-justices-impeached-retaliation-doing-their-job
We must remember that Israel was Socialist for many years and only turned right with Ariel Sharon, if I remember correctly.
==
The Labor Party was from 1935 to 1977 the default governing party in Israel and in the Jewish self-governing bodies which preceded it. Every ministry consisted of the Labor Party and some junior partners who extracted concessions. From 1977 to about 2001, the Labor Party and the nationalist-bourgeois bloc were competitive. Since 2001, the electoral base of the left has largely evaporated in Israel and the country now has a pattern of competition like Poland and some other eastern European countries: nationalist and religious parties v. social-liberal parties. Off to the side are the Arab parties and the residue of the left.
==
Note, Marxism never had much influence in the Labor Party and the functional pacifism and pro-Soviet dispositions you saw in the western left never had much purchase in Israel.
neo – I’m familiar with the three felonies a day issue. I agree that it’s a problem.
Look, falsifying business records is wrong. It is not a made up offense. Is it a victimless crime when the company is a sole proprietorship? Yes, probably. Is it a misdemeanor overcharged as a felony to get around the statute of limitations has run? Yes. Is it almost never charged? Yes. Is it ridiculous to ask for jail time for it? Yes. So Bragg’s prosecution is clearly abusive and political. BUT – if Trump hadn’t falsified his business records, Bragg wouldn’t have had that particular opening.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on the records thing. I agree that Smith is engaging in abusive selective prosecution given that Hillary did more or less the same thing and wasn’t charged. Again, BUT – what Trump did is not OK. It is not OK for a former president to take sensitive national secrets, show them to people without clearances, and then refuse to return them to the government. And for those who buy in to the whole “he didn’t actually show the documents to reporters, he was just bragging about it” thing, see the recent Stephanie Grisham news. Add in the recording. That’s an awful lot of smoke if there’s no fire. And the Presidential Records Act just doesn’t do what Trump supporters are trying to claim.
I agree with you about Mueller’s charges about lying to investigators. What was done to Flynn was a travesty. Also, the Georgia thing should not be criminally charged, although it likely will be.
But for most of the charges against Trump so far, I think my point still stands. His defense is not that he did nothing wrong. He was clearly doing something reckless, wrong, or both in both NY and with documents. His legitimate grievances come down to overcharging and selective prosecution.
If I understand the charges against Netanyahu, there’s a difference in kind. Netanyahu was charged with bribery on the theory that positive coverage from right-leaning sources was a “bribe” in return for Netanyahu enacting right-leaning policies. In other words, Netanyahu was literally indicted for governing.
Related (also for comic content)…
“Biden’s Anti-Semitism Czar Condemns Israel, Not Anti-Semites
Lipstadt condemned three countries. One of them was Israel.”—
https://www.frontpagemag.com/bidens-anti-semitism-czar-condemns-israel-not-anti-semites/
H/T Instapundit.
Another “criticizing-Soros-is-anti-semitic” goofball…sigh.
(And her criticism of Orban is likewise wrong-headed, if “Fashionable”…)
Used to think Lipstadt was commendable, even heroic.
But that was pre-Trump and the mask has slipped…
Alas, she’s made it very clear that her decency—and judgement—are sorely affected by her politics; IOW, while she has considerable abilities, talents and achievements, she’s just another Democratic-Party political hack.
Oh well…another one bites the dust.
File under: “How the mighty have…keeled over….”
yes whatever happened to her, actually robert malley (nod) calls the shots even though they suspended his security clearance, he conducted that never ending khashoggi funeral from a few years back,
they went after mrs netanyahu for cooked meals served in the residence, for german subs sold to egypt, and every other thing that came to mind, from their garland, mandelbrot (kind of like the mathematician)
BUT – if Trump hadn’t falsified his business records, Bragg wouldn’t have had that particular opening.
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Bragg did not have any opening. Even if Trump had falsified his business records, any prosecution would be time-barred. This isn’t that difficult.
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Note, what you and Bragg claim is ‘falsifying business records’: a company lawyer negotiates a nondisclosure agreement and bills the company for ‘legal services’. He issues 11 invoices for legal services. Company bookkeepers take the supporting documentation, mark it ‘legal services’ in the accounts payable. The invoices are satisfied with the issuance of 23 vouchers to the company lawyer. The company lawyer submits the vouchers to a Trump family trust and is paid. Trump’s personal intervention in this set of operations is exactly what? At most a couple of phone calls which lasted 30 seconds each. Now you go find a business proprietor who has been prosecuted in New York County for something similar in the last 10 years, and you find a case when that is the top count on the indictment, and you find a case where they manufacture a 34 count indictment out of a set of bookkeeping entries. And you find a case where an indictment was secured even though the charge was time-barred. Go.
neither of them worth much financially except for the result of their government positions.
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When Walter Mondale left office in 1981, he had a net worth of about $15,000. Writing in 1984, Michael Kinsley offered he considered it fairly gross that Mondale had in the intervening years increased his net worth by $500,000 or so by setting up shop as a lobbyist at the law firm of Winston & Strawn. Given what nominal incomes were in 1981 and 1983, contextually similar sums today would be $86,000 and $2.54 million. The Obama’s book advance was $65 million. Publishing companies are now a money-laundering enterprise.
It is not a made up offense.
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It was a made up offense. Everyone on this board understands that. One person on this board pretends he doesn’t.
Oligonicella,
Glad to hear you are on your way to recovery!
Art Deco – An NDA with a porn star claiming an affair is not a business expense, or a legal expense. If your business records record it as a legal expense or a business expense, then that record is false. That’s not difficult to understand. At least it shouldn’t be.
And I acknoweleged the statute of limitations and selective prosecution issues when I said that Bragg’s indictment is a joke.
An NDA with a porn star claiming an affair is not a business expense, or a legal expense.
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It is certainly a legal expense, and that is how it was listed, and the lawyer in question was an employee of the firm. Cohen was compensated with vouchers which were redeemed from a Trump family trust.
Thanks for this post. Ms. Glick is consistently excellent.
@Mike Plaiss: I would add Miranda Devine of the NY Post.
Art Deco – By your reasoning, every expense is a “legal expense” if the legal department negotiated the contract. Try again.
It’s not that hard folks:
(i) Trump engaged in conduct that ranges from very suspicious (paying off porn star) to technical violations of the law (business recods) to reckless behavior that arguably violated the law (classified information at Mar-a-Lago);
(ii) Trump’s pursuers are twisting the law, making up charges (e.g., Bragg’s purported “felonies,” which are actually time-barred misdemeanors), charging to the maximum extent, and ignoring high-profile instances of similarly-situated defendents who were not charged at all or let off with a slap on the wrist (i.e., selective prosecution).
Item (ii) above is clearly true, but so is (i). Just because Trump is being persecuted doesn’t mean that he is without blame, or that he is fit to be the GOP nominee this year. He is not without blame and he is wholely unfit to be the GOP nominee.
On the other hand, in Glick’s telling, Netyanyahu doesn’t appear to have the same reckless streak as Trump. No payments to porn stars. No waving of state secrets in front of reporters and others without clearances. No stubborn refusal to return documents. No posting of pictures showing himself swinging a baseball bat at the prosecutor.
What’s happening in Israel really looks like a putsch. What’s happening to Trump may be a putsch, but if it is Trump making it really, really easy.
like the 10 million paid from rnc accounts through perkins and coie for the danchenko dossier, funny thing, when three of the oligarchs sued steele and buzzfeed, the judge in miami, foreclosed discovery, and stepped down to work for david boies firm, we’ve seen these stories ad infinitum
“It’s not that hard folks:”
In the USA a presumption of innocence means that any defendant in a criminal trial is assumed to be innocent until they have been proven guilty.
(i) Trump engaged in conduct that ranges from very suspicious (paying off porn star) to technical violations of the law (business recods) to reckless behavior that arguably violated the law (classified information at Mar-a-Lago);
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There’s nothing ‘very suspicious’ about a non-disclosure agreement. It’s just not particularly principled. Either he actually did copulate with her or he didn’t want the distraction. The ‘technical violation’ is somewhere in the gray area between imaginary and something a prosecutor would never bother about except as an addendum to a different charge. There was nothing ‘reckless’ about having the documents at Mar-a-Lago. The agencies in question and the National Archives have copies of these documents, they’re not on a server which can be hacked, and the security was not only better than that to be found at those not prosecuted (Biden, Pence, &c) but better than that at the Archives itself as Sandy Berger couldn’t get to them to carry them off in his socks.
Art Deco – An NDA with a porn star claiming an affair is not a business expense, or a legal expense.
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Yes it is a legal expense and lawyers negotiate them as a matter of routine. Whether it’s a ‘business expense’ or not is irrelevant as Cohen was compensated with vouchers, not company funds.