The Bibi investigation: A guide for the perplexed

There are indeed good reasons to be perplexed about the political scandal that has been engulfing Israel in the last few weeks. The Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is under investigation. He has been questioned, many others have been questioned, television newscasts are now dedicating most of their energy to exposing new details about his ways and habits – every evening brings a new revelation.

How will this all end? No one knows for sure. And it depends on one’s definition of “ends.” One question is whether a decision to indict Prime Minister Netanyahu is forthcoming (and later – whether the court will find him guilty of something). Another question is whether Netanyahu will be able to retain enough political support in the Knesset to keep his seat. Of course, the two questions are linked, but not inseparable. That is to say: It is possible for the PM to retain his job for a while even in case of indictment. It is also possible for him to lose it without indictment.

Here is a short guide to what I believe is necessary to know at this point of the investigation.

The two cases

The police is – as far as we know – looking into two matters:

The first case concerns gifts that Netanyahu received on a regular basis from businessmen. Cigars were sent to him. His wife enjoyed champagne. Netanyahu, and Israelis have known this for many years, is not exactly the exemplary abstemious leader. He likes the good life. And he likes it better when someone else pays for the good life. The essence of this case is the assumption – which Netanyahu dismisses – that getting gifts on such a scale from people who have interests that the PM can advance is a crime.

The second case concerns Netanyahu’s ties to two newspapers: his chummy relations with the Sheldon-Adelson-owned paper Israel Hayom, and his adversarial relations with Israel’s second-largest newspaper Yediot Achronot. What the investigation revealed, to the horror of journalists, is that the PM and the publisher of Yediot had a series of meetings in which they negotiated a deal. Netanyahu will tame “his” newspaper, Israel Hayom – because it is highly damaging to Yediot, commercially speaking – in exchange for Yediot becoming less hostile to the Prime Minister. The essence of the case here is the assumption that the PM was trading Prime-Ministerial power for media support.

The Legal question

In both of these cases, the facts are not going to be the issue. The gifts were given and taken, and Netanyahu, clearly, returned some favors. He says that these were friends – they gave him gifts as friends and he returned a favor as a friend. A PM is allowed to have friends.

In the second case, there are recordings. The PM asked one of his aids to record his meetings with the publisher of Yediot, Arnon Moses, and the police have the tapes. This scandal is so much more puzzling because of these tapes – because it gives us all an opportunity to watch the back allies of our political system.

But is this illegal? If the publisher acted in ways that are journalistically unethical (and there is little doubt that he did), that is a matter for him, his journalists and his readers to settle, not necessarily for the legal authorities. The Prime Minister acted the way politicians act when they see such opportunities – he was willing to ease the life of the publisher in exchange for positive coverage. The legal community is going to grapple with this issue – as it is far from being a clear-cut case of illegal behavior.

 The media

This scandal is a tricky one when it comes to media coverage because of two reasons.

The first one is obvious – and concerns many scandals: There’s a good story here, and it is a story against a powerful person that has been the PM for very long. There are many media outlets and many journalists and commentators who are covering the case against Netanyahu, whom they dislike, with much vigor and joy. It is good for the ratings, and many of them think it’s also good for Israel.

The second one is also obvious, but more unique to this case: The media is both the narrator and the star of the show. It is reporting about itself, about the most powerful newspaper publisher in Israel, about negotiations in which writers were traded as if they were cattle, about a game that is played on their field. Journalists are justifiably horrified and angry by some of the revelations made in recent days – because they cast a shadow over their profession. But there is a potential downside to such psychological impact: it makes media editorial decisions suspicious of bias.

The politics

Netanyahu has many enemies. He has enemies in the opposition, looking for a way to dethrone him and replace him; and he has no less enemies within his coalition who want to see him gone.