Spoiler: If a plea deal is reached in which Netanyahu will plead guilty to criminal offenses, pay a high fine (I wonder who will inform the lady), will want a prison sentence converted to service work plus disgrace, which will keep him away from us for 8 years, I will have to support her. No, I will not enjoy another prime minister in prison. But I find it hard to believe that this is not an exercise.
What will be written here stems from conversations with five (!) People, who are not politicians, who have worked most senior, most closely and most with Bibi in the last decade. All five called me yesterday on their own initiative. Everyone agrees: he makes Mandelblit the zobor of his life. He crawls it, marches it, carves and carves the charges, until the last minute. This is how he behaved all his life. In political negotiations, in political negotiations, in any contact with another human being. In the end, the other side is left with nothing and Netanyahu disappears, along with the promises.
Why is he doing this? Because he wants to “prove” that the prosecution just chased him, that he wants to inflame his followers, that he wants to demonstrate to the court that the cases, ostensibly, do not hold water. The only way, these people say, to reach a deal with Netanyahu is by force: to say to him, ‘Sir, we will go with you with all our might, to the end.’ Do not blink, do not compromise, do not see it from a shower. Demand the maximum – actual imprisonment (which will be converted to service work), long-term imprisonment, large fine, built-in disgrace.
In such a case, the disgrace begins to be counted only from the end of serving the sentence, which is the cumulative period of probation and service work. This means that Netanyahu will be able to return when he is over 80. The problem is that Mandelblit is incapable of such conduct. He is a soft, kind, pleasant man and has the character of a defense attorney. The fear is that Netanyahu is now chewing Mandelblit to spit him on the floor in two weeks as he did for everyone. Yitzhak Herzog (condolences, Honorable President) in those negotiations for joining the coalition, Avi Gabay, Barack Obama, Tzipi Livni, all senior Likud leaders for their generations and all the leaders of the free world.
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If that’s the case, it could be Mandelblit’s biggest farce since taking office. Is this really Netanyahu’s exercise? I do not know. What I can say out loud: The leak of contacts for a plea deal did not come to me from Netanyahu’s direction. The leak surprised Netanyahu. Beyond that, everything is open. And one more thing: I think there is a situation that this exercise, assuming it is an exercise, will fail.
There is a situation in which Netanyahu digs for himself the political and personal grave. Remember, in the last two years all the exercises have failed. All assessments of the situation collapsed. He was disconnected, confused, mistakenly failing for an error, collapsing into a fall. The magic has expired. He is no longer prime minister. He is charged. So he’ll cheat on Mandelblit? And what next? Will the judges, in three and a half years, remember that there was a plea bargain? Will these three days in January 2022 make a difference? Does he really believe that these contacts, which he initiated, will burn the country and make all his haters, investigators, prosecutors and judges sober at once ? There are many questions in my remarks, and there are no answers.In the coming days some will be clarified, some not yet.
Spoiler: If a plea deal is reached in which Netanyahu pleads guilty to criminal offenses, pays a high fine (I wonder who will inform the lady), will want a prison sentence converted to service work plus disgrace that will keep him away from us for 8 years, I will have to support it. No, I will not enjoy another prime minister in prison. But I find it hard to believe that this is not an exercise.>
– Ben Caspit Ben Caspit (@BenCaspit) January 13, 2022
The trumpets and the deal
The contacts for a plea deal are kicking and kicking. One of the kicks was sustained by the defendant’s followers, who heard him repeatedly promise not to go into a plea deal, not retire and prove his innocence in court. After all, his bags are collapsing all the way. In the investigation, with the State Attorney, with the ombudsman, at the hearing, at the trial itself. Now it turns out that the defendant is willing to admit to committing a criminal offense. If there was a collapse here, it is not of the cases.
Benjamin Netanyahu denies there will be a plea deal, courtesy of Walla!Amazing how the bibist propaganda machine is disciplined: on a normal day, publicity like the contacts for the plea deal would open the gates of hell. And here, on Wednesday, is a thin silence. Here a tweet, there a whimper. In the internal WhatsApp groups, they wallow in Pike, according to which it is the attorney general who approached Netanyahu for a plea deal. Such a practice does not exist, by the way. Outwardly, they are silent. Because they know the truth. Spoiler: If the contacts fail, the volcano will erupt in retrospect. With the same lies, insults, slanders and threats.
The last day has been, as is customary in our places, laden with panic, tyranny and hollow threats from all sides. The tweeters solemnly announced that if there was this plea deal there would be a bankruptcy of the rule of law system. The political spells have announced that this will be the end of the current government. Black observers have argued that Netanyahu will appoint his temporary replacement and continue to push the system out of the convenient exile in Caesarea (if there is one to fund it).
Need to relax. The current government is more stable than it seems for the simple reason that none of its components has an interest in going to the polls. The adviser will not go into the deal without making sure Netanyahu is removed from political life until the age of 80, plus or minus (disgrace is 7 years from the date of serving the sentence, which will be between 9 and 12 months of service work). If the counselor gives up, then everything said about him in the last day’s tweets is true, and more.
From Wednesday morning, the date the contacts for the plea deal were revealed, until Thursday afternoon, the political and public system experienced an accelerated journey on a crazy roller coaster. It started with relative calm (when we thought the contacts exploded) and turned into a crazy attack on steroids when it turned out not to be true.
The shofars quickly changed status: from statements that Bibi did not initiate the contacts, they moved to the fact that if, after all, he admits to receiving some gifts, this is the final proof of the government coup and the political pursuit of him. Senior Likud officials secretly pumped up messages stating that Netanyahu must not give up on the stigma. In the environment of the incumbent prime minister, monsters watched developments. For them, the surrender of the ombudsman is a final disintegration of what is left of the statehood and the Israeli justice system. Oh, yes, also of the government. And so on. Everyone exaggerates, of course.
Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Yoav Ari Dodkevich)Let’s get back to the beginning. For the past two years, Netanyahu has been afraid to enter into negotiations with the adviser, fearing a leak that will cause him double damage: Likud officials will understand that an era is over and have the courage to tail it and his trumpets will sober up and begin to fold. , Who is not a lawyer, to grope at Mandelblit (according to the thresholds of her employees). The messenger was rejected.
I want to reassure Netanyahu here: Do not get excited, senior Likud members are rabbits, they will muster the courage to go after you. The trumpets? Oh well. I do not have to explain to you that even if you enter Riklin and Magal’s synagogue with a tray of shrimp, a priest and a shiksha, on Yom Kippur, and ask to marry her in front of the ark, they will burst into dancing.
Regarding the plea bargain: there are disputes, but they can be mediated. It all depends now on Netanyahu and his environment. That is, in its environment. It’s no secret that the man who claimed to be a “strong leader” has long been free to make his own decisions. The problem this time is that at this rate, in the future he really may not be free. His “environment,” which urged him not to give up his place in favor of another Likud official, so that the right could easily form a government, failed him.
Those who preached to him that he was invincible and there is no way anyone would be able to get him out of Balfour, lied to him. In the last two years he has failed again and again. All the assessments of the situation and the decisions he made, inspired by those around him, were bad and disastrous. It’s time for him to learn from experience.
He has another well-known custom: to postpone every decision to the last minute, and then to postpone it a little longer. This time it may cost him dearly. He does not like to pay dearly (or pay). In 12 days, the selection committee is expected to select the final candidates for the position of next ombudsman. In 16 days, Mandelblit will leave the ombudsman’s office, and the window of opportunity will be closed.
If Netanyahu does not strive for a quick exit now, the next thing that could slam on him is a heavy iron gate. Nothing good threatens him because of the next ombudsman. Remember, the one who will choose him will be the ultimate nemesis, the greatest devil, the hybrid between Qassem Suleimani, Titus and Noni Mozes: Gideon Saar. If Netanyahu wants a deal, it is now or never.
Ben Caspit’s full column in Maariv this weekend
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