JERUSALEM — Political cartoons depict flames licking at the foundations of the fortresslike household of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Commentators say the noose is tightening around his neck.
For months, Mr. Netanyahu has been under investigation in two separate, leak-ridden graft cases involving illicit gifts from wealthy friends and back-room dealings with a local newspaper magnate in a bid for favorable coverage. The latest blow came just before the weekend, when the Israeli police signed a state’s witness deal with Ari Harow, Mr. Netanyahu’s former chief of staff and once one of his closest confidants.
A day earlier, in a legal document pertaining to the negotiations with Mr. Harow, the police said in writing, for the first time, that Mr. Netanyahu was suspected of bribery, as well as fraud and breach of trust.
In light of these developments, analysts say, it appears likely that Israel’s longest-serving prime minister after David Ben-Gurion will ultimately face charges, injecting his fourth term with a new level of turbulence and intrigue. The question now, his critics say, is how long he can stave off what they view as his looming political demise.
“Ari Harow signed a state’s witness agreement because he has something to tell,” Sima Kadmon, a prominent political columnist, wrote in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Sunday. If the authorities were prepared to let Mr. Harow, who was facing trial in a case involving his private business interests, off so lightly with six months’ community service and a fine, Ms. Kadmon said, “then Netanyahu is already a dead man walking.”
Any actual indictment could still be many months off, and most analysts, including Ms. Kadmon, doubt that Mr. Netanyahu, a political survivor who has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, will be going anywhere soon.
Under Israeli law, a prime minister does not have to resign even if convicted, said Prof. Barak Medina, an expert in constitutional law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. If the police recommended filing charges, the state prosecutor and attorney general would still have to agree, after granting the prime minister a hearing. There is no precedent in Israel for a sitting prime minister being charged.
Still, if the police were to recommend serious charges, like bribery, against Mr. Netanyahu, it would be “hard to survive,” Professor Medina said, because the political and public pressure would grow.
Mr. Netanyahu has been projecting an image of business as usual. In a Sabbath greeting video posted on Facebook, he dismissed the latest legal developments as “background noise” and said he was continuing to run the affairs of state, including settlement expansion, in a nod to his right-wing base.
In broadcast remarks before the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu spoke of hosting the president of Togo and a coming visit to Africa. His office and his supporters have denounced the investigations as a political witch hunt intended to topple him from power.
“At this stage, by law, every Israeli citizen, and certainly the prime minister, must be presumed completely innocent,” Tzachi Hanegbi, a minister from Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud Party, said on Israeli radio. “So he is running the state and in parallel, he is managing his legal battle.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert, was released from prison last month after serving 16 months of a 27-month term for crimes including bribery, fraud, obstruction of justice and breach of trust. Mr. Olmert was forced from power in 2008 under the weight of the police investigations, although he remained as a caretaker prime minister until early elections could be held in 2009.
The police have also been making headway in other criminal investigations in which Mr. Netanyahu has not been named as a subject, but which involve associates from his inner circle. One scandal involves a $2 billion dollar deal for the purchase of submarines and missile ships from a German supplier. Critics have described that episode as potentially the biggest corruption case in Israeli history, touching on deep conflicts of interest and national security.
Michael Ganor, the Israeli agent for the German shipping company, has also signed a state’s witness deal with Israeli investigators. His lawyer, David Shimron, who is also Mr. Netanyahu’s personal lawyer and second cousin, recently spent several days under house arrest.
Adding to the Netanyahu family troubles, the police questioned Mr. Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, this past week for a fourth time as part of an investigation into accusations that public funds were misused at the Netanyahus’ residences.
And rather than keep a low profile, the couple’s older son, Yair Netanyahu, has been drawing public fire for crude behavior and getting into a social media spat with one of Mr. Olmert’s sons.
Critics of the Netanyahus have long portrayed Yair, 25, as a spoiled heir apparent who still lives with his parents in the official residence and lives lavishly at the taxpayers’ expense. When he was out walking with Kaya, the family dog, late last month, a woman from the neighborhood asked him to pick up his dog’s waste. He responded, according to the woman and a witness, with an obscene gesture.
Days later, a left-wing nongovernmental organization posted a scathing critique of Yair Netanyahu’s lifestyle. The young man responded with a vitriolic screed that he posted on his Facebook page. He asked why there was no scrutiny of other prime ministers’ sons, including Ariel Sharon’s son who went to jail or Mr. Olmert’s son and his “interesting relationship with a Palestinian man and its implications for national security.” He signed off with emojis of a raised middle finger and a pile of excrement.
In a Facebook response in Hebrew and Arabic, Ariel Olmert accused the younger Netanyahu of spreading lies about his “imaginary friend,” and accused him of racism and homophobia. The younger Olmert added that he lives with a woman and works for a living. He also tries to clean up after his dog, he said.
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