Bizarre week at Netanyahu trial fuels concern over tactics to dodge court

Opponents cry foul after hearing was cut short due to visit by Paraguayan official

Protesters dressed as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog protest after Netanyahu's pardon request at the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court. EPA

It was a bizarre twist in Benjamin Netanyahu's criminal trial: a hearing at the Tel Aviv court ended early because "something big is happening in South America", the Israeli Prime Minister said, and it would be embarrassing if he could not deal with the situation.

The event, as it turned out, was a visit by the Speaker of Paraguay’s parliament, Raul Latorre. Mr Netanyahu, whose trial has been a major battleground in Israeli politics for years, had spent only an hour and 20 minutes in court.

The Paraguayan guest said he had been told “how unfair this trial is”, and that “we are here to give you our full support”.

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“We admire you and see you as one of the main leaders of the free world,” Mr Lattore added. Mr Netanyahu described his trial as “comical” to the visitor.

The disruption caused by the visit of an official from a country more than 10,000km away might have seemed farcical if the stakes were not so high. For Israel’s opposition, the corruption case is about Israel’s longest-serving prime minister acting in his own interests at the expense of the state’s, an accusation levelled at Mr Netanyahu during the Gaza war and the fall-out from the October 7 attacks.

A few days earlier, Mr Netanyahu requested the cancellation of a trial session due to a meeting with US envoy Tom Barrack, according to Israeli media. He has also used the Gaza war at every opportunity to try to postpone or interrupt the proceedings.

After the Hamas attacks of October 2023, the number of trial days was limited due to security and Mer Netanyahu has frequently requested his hearings be cancelled due to his handling of the war.

The interruptions were also a sign of how the trial appears to have lost its way, with Mr Netanyahu regularly finding excuses to miss sessions and calls growing from some quarters for it to be abandoned.

"Netanyahu’s most immediate concern is delaying or ending the court cases against him for breach of trust, fraud, and bribery. Since the start of these legal proceedings in May 2020, his central focus has been evading judicial accountability," wrote the Washington-based Arab Centre.

"The current Gaza war afforded the prime minister a unique strategic opening, which he has leveraged effectively."

Israelis protest outside President Isaac Herzog's residence after he was asked to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Reuters

Mr Netanyahu is charged in three separate criminal cases with bribery, fraud and breach of trust. This month, he formally requested a presidential pardon, which the US President Donald Trump has also encouraged. However, pardons in Israel tend to be used for defendants already found guilty, whereas Mr Netanyahu's case continues, with the Prime Minister being asked to give evidence weekly.

Embarrassing event

The latest subject being tackled by the court is the accusation that Mr Netanyahu offered regulatory favours worth hundreds of millions of shekels to an Israeli telecoms company in exchange for favourable media coverage. The Prime Minister denies all charges in the trial.

"After years of denials, it's all clear: There is nothing ideological about Benjamin Netanyahu's assault on the judiciary. The goal has always been to scuttle the criminal proceedings against him, and this effort has been ramped up as the prime minister's situation at the Tel Aviv District Court has deteriorated," wrote Haaretz.

After Monday’s session was cut short, the opposition leader Yair Lapid said that “Netanyahu has become an embarrassing event to the State of Israel”.

“Instead of taking [Mr Latorre] to Nir Oz, they take him to the court,” Mr Lapid said, referring to one of the Israeli communities most badly attacked by Hamas during the October 7 attack in 2023.

A demonstrator holds up US dollar bills during in a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. EPA

On Saturday, thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv against Mr Netanyahu's time in power more generally, mirroring the vast protests that called for the release of hostages before October's Gaza ceasefire deal.

But the opposition’s regular accusations that the Prime Minister is not taking the trial seriously seem to be going nowhere, with judges regularly allowing Mr Netanyahu to miss sessions in the name of carrying out important state business, the details of which are kept vague.

At the beginning of his testimony on Monday he said that he had made a “supreme effort” to appear in court the mandatory three times a week set by judges, but that it was incompatible with his work.

Paraguay’s ambassador to Israel later said the Speaker of the parliament’s visit was “made solely in a personal capacity” after an opposition member of the Knesset complained the official had interfered in “Israel’s internal affairs”.