May 22, 2020

After more than three years of investigation, charges in three cases and three national elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will enter a Jerusalem courtroom Sunday for the start of his corruption trial.

Netanyahu was indicted more than a year ago on three charges that you can read more about here. Two have to do with allegations that he bought himself positive press, and the third alleges that he received illegal gifts from a rich donor. He has denied them all and called the investigations against him a “witch hunt.”

Netanyahu’s trial was delayed by two months after emergency measures put in place to battle the coronavirus pandemic effectively shut Israeli courthouses. Now with Israel’s infrastructure creaking back to life, the district court here is open for business again.

During that time, Netanyahu narrowly managed to hold onto power — meaning that on Sunday he will finally become Israel’s first sitting prime minister to go on trial. (Every other prime minister for the past two decades have been investigated; Ehud Olmert, who ultimately went to jail for corruption, resigned prior to his indictment.)

The trial is “really unprecedented,” Yuval Shany, vice president of research for the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute, said Thursday.

Here are five things to know as the trial gets underway.

1. Netanyahu will make only limited appearances in court.

Every day that Netanyahu spends in the courtroom keeps him away from other government business — and deepens the troubling optics of having Israel’s leader sitting at the defendant’s table.

Netanyahu last week asked the three-judge panel hearing his case to excuse him from the first day of the trial, claiming in part that his five bodyguards would violate the Health Ministry guidelines setting limits on the number of people allowed in the courtroom and that the first day is just a “technical” discussion among the attorneys.

The judges responded that he had to be there for the trial’s first day.

“This is the case in every criminal procedure, including the current criminal procedure,” they said.

But the judges likely will not insist that Netanyahu show up for every session after the first one, according to Israel Democracy Institute researcher Amir Fuchs. Still, Fuchs notes, he will need to be briefed and consulted with after every court session.

“He will have to be inside the process even if he is not physically there,” Fuchs said.

2. The trial could last at least a year – and a final verdict could take longer.

Olmert’s did, even with the court meeting several times a week. In Netanyahu’s case, it could be several months before court is in session in the trial again since the defense must be given time to review all the materials generated during the investigation. When the court reconvenes, it could hear over 300 witnesses for the prosecution, according to reports.

That means the trial could take up to a year, and with appeals to the Supreme Court, a final verdict could take even longer. Olmert’s appeals after his conviction, for comparison, took more than three years.

Even if the court rules in Netanyahu’s favor, the saga may not be over. In Israel, the prosecution can appeal a court’s acquittal of a defendant, and often does.

3. Netanyahu will probably be able to serve out his term as prime minister.

According to Israeli law, a prime minister who has been convicted of a crime must step down — but only once there is a final verdict. Under the terms of a governance deal that Netanyahu struck this month, he is set to remain prime minister only for 18 months before handing the reins to his coalition partner Benny Gantz on Nov. 17, 2021.

After that date, Netanyahu is set to take on the title of deputy prime minister. That could cause trouble for him, even if a final verdict still has not been reached. That’s because other government ministers and lawmakers do have to resign or take a leave of absence while under indictment.

But a recent lawsuit suggests that things won’t be cut and dry then, either. In response to a lawsuit making the case that Netanyahu should not be allowed to form a government while under indictment, the court ruled that it did not have the legal grounds to interfere with the workings of the Knesset, or the executive branch.

Once Netanyahu steps down as prime minister, the court will likely be asked to force him to resign. Doing so would require undermining the precedent it just set.

4. Netanyahu is not the only person on trial here.

A host of prominent Israelis will parade through the courtroom. Also on trial are Arnon Mozes, publisher of the daily Hebrew-language Yediot Acharonot newspaper, and Shaul and Iris Elovitch, the controlling shareholders of Israel’s Bezeq telecommunications company and also owners of the Walla news website. They are charged with providing Netanyahu with favorable coverage in exchange for political favors.

Also, three former government workers whom Netanyahu hired are expected to testify against him. Shlomo Filber was the director-general of the Communications Ministry who allegedly proposed regulatory changes to benefit Elovitch at Netanyahu’s request. Ari Harow was Netanyahu’s former chief of staff and recorded Netanyahu’s in-person meetings with Mozes. And Nir Hefetz was a Netanyahu media adviser and spokesman who allegedly directed the positive coverage of the prime minister on Walla. All have been given immunity from prosecution.

5. The trial will not be televised.

Israelis who are eager to hear what the star witnesses and others in the trial have to say are likely to have to get their information after the fact. In a pilot program launched last month to make Supreme Court proceedings more transparent, the high court streamed a hearing. But while there have been calls from many quarters asking the Jerusalem court to televise the Netanyahu trial, thus far there are no plans to include it in the pilot.

Hadara Bilsky thought she’d spend her first semester of college making friends in her dorm, having discussions with professors and students in class, and attending Shabbat services at Hillel. Now the 18-year-old isn’t sure if any of that will happen.

Emory University, her school of choice, has yet to announce whether it will hold classes in the fall. But many U.S. colleges have said they are likely to hold at least some classes virtually this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Rather than starting at the Atlanta school this year as planned, Bilsky is “highly considering” enrolling in Year Course, a Young Judaea program in which high school graduates spend a year in Israel traveling the country, participating in internships and volunteer programs, and taking college-level classes.

She wants to pick up where she left off when the pandemic cut short her high school’s Israel trip this spring. And Bilsky hopes that by spending a year in Israel, she can “ride out the wave” of the pandemic while immersing herself in a new culture and learning Hebrew — and then start college a year later than planned.

“I wanted a more normal college experience, and no matter what Emory decides to do, it won’t be that experience,” said Bilsky, who lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Under normal circumstances, hundreds of American Jews travel to Israel after they graduate from high school for what’s known as a gap year. Orthodox Jewish teens tend to study in seminaries and yeshivas before beginning college, while dozens of programs — including Year Course — primarily offer Israel experiences to non-Orthodox teens.

This year, the uncertainty about what college will look like in the fall, coupled with Israel’s relative success beating back coronavirus cases, appears to be driving up demand. Gap year programs say they are seeing a rise in last-minute applications as the possibility of not being able to be on campus next semester has students scrambling for other plans.

“This is the time of year when normally we’re pretty zipped up for the next year and we’ve usually gotten most of the applicants that we can expect,” said Dafna Laskin, Young Judaea’s director of engagement.

“This is the time of year when normally we’re pretty zipped up for the next year and we’ve usually gotten most of the applicants that we can expect,” said Dafna Laskin, Young Judaea’s director of engagement. “But in the last two to three weeks, where normally we’d see one to two applicants a week registering, I say we’re seeing maybe six or seven.”

In addition, fewer participants than usual have been dropping out, Laskin said.

Israel was among the earliest countries to institute strict social distancing measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Its death toll has remained below 300 and the country has now reopened, with businesses and schools operating while following social distancing and other measures to curb disease spread.

That makes studying there appealing to those coming from the United States, where many schools remain closed and summer camps have been canceled.

Nativ, a gap year program run by the Conservative movement, is seeing a rise in interest from students who say they do not want to spend a year doing online classes.

“We’re able to offer them an opportunity to come to Israel, study at Hebrew University in an academic institution with real classes, face to face with their professors, still have social opportunities with their friends and do everything that we would do on a regular year,” director Yossi Garr said.

Though Nativ ended up sending home this year’s participants early and foreigners are still barred from entering Israel, Garr is working under the assumption that the program will be able to go on in the fall with increased hygiene and sanitation, as well as other protocols to limit disease spread.

Nishmat, an Orthodox women’s seminary in Jerusalem, also is making adjustments to ensure its gap year program can start in the fall. After shutting down during the height of the pandemic in Israel and sending home its participants, the program has been able to reopen classes to Israeli students by taking a number of precautions. They include wearing masks and separating students into small groups at all times by Plexiglas partitions in classrooms.

“We saw that it’s possible to run school under those conditions. We’re doing it now,” said Rabbi Joshua Weisberg, who directs the seminary’s gap year program.

The seminary, too, is seeing a rise in interest. Usually the class is mostly finalized at this time of year, and one or two potential students might still be finishing their applications. But in recent weeks, a handful of young women have reached out about joining the program.

“It’s students who are rethinking their whole plan” because of the pandemic, Weisberg said.

The pandemic might still throw a wrench in students’ gap year plans. It’s unclear whether colleges and universities will approve gap year requests for all the students who might request them, and a second wave of infections could make travel inadvisable.

“I am worried that I won’t be able to go at all,” said Reena Bromberg Gaber, who is planning to participate in Nativ in the fall. “It will be really sad, and it will be another cancellation in a really long series of cancellations.”

The 17-year-old has spent the last few months doing courses virtually and her high school graduation was canceled. Bromberg Gaber had planned to participate in United Synagogue Youth’s spring convention but that was nixed. Nor will she be working as a junior counselor at Camp Ramah of the Poconos this summer: Like most camps, it won’t be operating because of the pandemic.

Still, Bromberg Gaber says the fact that Israel has been reopening gives her hope that the same fate won’t befall her plans for the coming year.

“It will be the first time in a while that I’ll be able to hang out with friends,” she said, “and start getting back into real life.”