Roni Alsheich, former head of the Israel Police, provoked outrage when he told Israel’s Army Radio on Wednesday that he had expected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign when he was indicted in 2019.
The Times of Israel reported:
“Nobody could have guessed that ultimately, the prime minister would decide not to resign, would fight from within the system, would weaken the police,” said Alsheich in an interview with Army Radio.
Pressed to elaborate, Alsheich — who served as police chief during the investigation of Netanyahu and ended his term shortly before prosecutors recommended that the prime minister be indicted — denied that police had acted under the assumption that the prime minister would resign.
Alsheich went on to say that Netanyahu had not been singled out, but added that he had assumed that Netanyahu would resign for moral reasons and for the good of the country.
Regardless, Alsheich’s remarks triggered criticism from Netanyahu’s allies, who said they had known all along that the three corruption charges against Netanyahu — for which he remains on trial, despite weak evidence — were a setup.
Speaker of the Knesset Amir Ohana — the first openly gay politician to hold that post — tweeted (translated via Google):
From the first moment I said that the prosecutor’s office assumed that the multitude of charges and the state witnesses would cause the Prime Minister to break down and go to a plea deal.
Who can afford to go to such a war against the state, whose resources are almost unlimited compared to a private person (the same state that forbade Netanyahu to receive aid in financing his defense) – and not break?
Netanyahu, thanks to the strength he drew from his many supporters, broke their thesis – and prevented the voter’s will from being thwarted.
This was and remains the real danger to Israeli democracy: non-acceptance of the election results, and an attempt to thwart them through the enforcement system, which can now be called in this context – the bypass system. Bypassing the voter’s decision.
זו לא הייתה פליטת פה – זו הייתה המדיניות.
מהרגע הראשון אמרתי שבפרקליטות הניחו שריבוי האישומים ועדי המדינה יגרמו לראש הממשלה להישבר וללכת להסדר טיעון.
מי יכול להרשות לעצמו ללכת למלחמה כזאת מול המדינה, שמשאביה כמעט בלתי-מוגבלים ביחס לאדם פרטי (אותה מדינה שאסרה על נתניהו לקבל… https://t.co/2evpSPHCqv
— Amir Ohana – אמיר אוחנה (@AmirOhana) June 28, 2023
Netanyahu did not resign, but stayed in office and fought several successive elections, winning more votes for his party than any other but failing to assemble a coalition until the opposition united to oust him in 2021.
He made a comeback in 2022, and led a coalition of right-wing parties to victory, returning to office even while under indictment and on trial. He has proposed a set of ambitious judicial reforms, which are hotly debated.
Observers have noted the apparent similarities between Netanyahu’s prosecution — which supporters say has no legal basis — and the effort by Democrats in the U.S. to prosecute former President Donald Trump.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.