Israel Won’t Charge Netanyahu With Corruption

The political fortunes of Benjamin Netanyahu suddenly looked a lot brighter Wednesday, after state prosecutors announced that they will not press criminal corruption charges against the former Israeli prime minister.

The decision removed the final hurdle to Netanyahu’s widely anticipated political comeback, positioning the telegenic hard-liner to galvanize opposition against beleaguered Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Polls show Netanyahu to be the single opposition leader capable of defeating Barak if elections were held now--despite the fact that it was Barak who trounced Netanyahu in national voting just 16 months ago. Netanyahu quit as head of the right-wing Likud Party that very election day and, in a tearful farewell to supporters 10 days later, announced his departure from politics.

Citing insufficient evidence, Atty. Gen. Elyakim Rubinstein said he was rejecting a police recommendation to prosecute Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, and closing the case against them. But it was not a clean bill of health.

“This case does not belong before a court,” Rubinstein wrote in a 22-page opinion released Wednesday night. The charges “could not have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . [But] it must not be thought that upon closing the case, all is presented as right, proper and pure. Far from it. . . . This was not a proper way to run government.”

The ruling ended an 11-month investigation of the Netanyahus. Police accused them of illegally receiving the free services of a private house-repair contractor, worth about $100,000, and of illegally keeping more than $100,000 worth of gifts they had received while Netanyahu was in office. The allegations included theft, bribery and obstruction of justice.

“This is the result we have been waiting for,” Netanyahu’s attorney, Yaakov Weinroth, said upon hearing reports that the case would be closed. Netanyahu, who was en route to Israel from Atlanta, could not be reached for comment. He has consistently denied wrongdoing.

His many detractors were disappointed that Netanyahu, blamed for setting back the Arab-Israeli peace process during his combative, three-year administration, could return to the political arena. His supporters complained that the case against him was politically motivated, and they welcomed his resurrection.

It was the second time in three years that Netanyahu has avoided a corruption trial; a 1997 influence-peddling investigation was dropped due to lack of evidence.

“A black and dangerous cloud that threatened Israeli democracy has been lifted,” said Yuval Steinitz, a pro-Netanyahu member of parliament from Likud. “This has been the most severe political persecution in the history of Israel.”

Netanyahu, who has spent his political retirement in a lucrative public-speaking career and as a consultant to Israeli high-tech firms, will first have to wrest control of the party from Chairman Ariel Sharon. The brusque architect of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Sharon fares poorly in hypothetical elections against Barak.

Pollsters and pundits believe that the leadership of the party is Netanyahu’s for the asking. It is, however, too soon to know whether he could defeat Barak so easily, in the likely event that parliament forces new elections late this or early next year.

Much of the boost Netanyahu receives in polls stems from disappointment in Barak and does not necessarily translate into votes for Netanyahu, veteran pollster Rafi Smith said Wednesday.

Barak, despite his landslide victory over Netanyahu, has lost his majority government over concessions he is willing to make to the Palestinians as part of a definitive peace agreement. He has also lost ground among his core leftist supporters for giving in to religious ultra-Orthodox parties on domestic issues. Now he hopes to regain the leftists’ loyalty with a so-called civil revolution that will reduce religious restrictions on the lives of ordinary Israelis.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, can be expected to capitalize on the criminal investigation against him, analysts said. Despite his U.S. education and membership in an important Israeli family, Netanyahu campaigned for office in 1996 as an outsider fighting against the traditional elites, a sentiment that he can once again exploit.

However Netanyahu chooses to play it, his return undoubtedly would reshuffle the political deck and would pose a serious challenge to Barak. The influential ultra-Orthodox Shas Party recently abandoned Barak’s government and has already indicated that it will support Netanyahu.

“The attorney general’s decision to close the case against Benjamin Netanyahu convulses every stone of the already shaky political establishment,” commentator Shalom Yerushalmi wrote in Wednesday’s Maariv newspaper.

Even as prosecutors announced their decision, Netanyahu’s rival Sharon led a group of right-wing politicians early today onto the Temple Mount, the hotly contested sacred plateau that lies at the heart of rival claims to Jerusalem’s Old City. The visit set off a clash between about 200 young Palestinians and the hundreds of police, many in full riot gear, who were deployed around the shrine to protect Sharon.

At least three Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets, including one who was struck in the mouth. Police said about two dozen officers were injured by stones thrown by the Palestinians. One was rushed to a nearby ambulance on a stretcher.