To say that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal trial is among the most legally complex and politically consequential cases in Israel’s history is not an exaggeration.
The case has unfolded across a decade of investigations, indictments, elections, governments, protest movements, wars, and institutional battles. At nearly every stage, a procedural decision that might appear technical in another case has carried broader implications: for the pace of the proceedings, for public confidence in the justice system, and for the political narrative surrounding Netanyahu himself.
One such moment returned to the foreground on Monday.
During a hearing ostensibly focused on the court’s decision to expand the number of weekly trial days, the judges overseeing Netanyahu’s case said that their June 2023 position regarding the bribery charge in Case 4000 remained unchanged even after hearing Netanyahu’s testimony and cross-examination.
The three-judge Jerusalem District Court panel had told the parties at the time that it saw difficulties in establishing the bribery offense and suggested that the prosecution consider withdrawing the charge.
Charges against Netanyahu facing serious obstacles
That was a rare and direct signal from the judges that the most serious charge in Netanyahu’s trial faced significant obstacles.
In June 2023, the prosecution had already presented a substantial part of its case, but the court had not yet heard Netanyahu testify or seen most of the defense case. The prosecution responded at the time that the court had only heard part of the picture and that further issues were expected to emerge during the defense stage.
Monday was different. Netanyahu has now completed his own testimony, including the prosecution’s cross-examination and the defense’s limited re-examination. The court did not explain which evidentiary difficulties it believes remain unresolved, but its message was clear enough: Whatever Netanyahu’s testimony added to the record, it did not change the judges’ assessment.
Case 4000, the Bezeq-Walla affair, is the only case in which Netanyahu is charged with bribery. Prosecutors allege that Netanyahu, while serving as both prime minister and communications minister, advanced regulatory measures that benefited Bezeq, then controlled by Shaul Elovitch. In exchange, the state alleges, Netanyahu and his family received unusually favorable and responsive treatment from the Walla news site, which was also then owned by Elovitch.
Netanyahu denies wrongdoing.
Removing the charge would not erase Case 4000, let alone end the trial. Netanyahu would still face the fraud and breach of trust allegations in that case, as well as the separate allegations in Cases 1000 and 2000.
It would, however, remove the charge carrying the heaviest legal and symbolic weight.
The public debate since Monday has therefore been predictable. Netanyahu supporters have presented the court’s statement as conclusive proof that the case was a political witch hunt from the start, and that the prosecution’s insistence that Netanyahu’s cross-examination would clarify the picture has now collapsed.
Netanyahu’s testimony, as it stands, could be read as favorable to both sides. Many have pointed to the gaps in his memory and moments of apparent inconsistency. But he also gave lengthy, at times detailed explanations for the decisions at issue, consistently denied any quid pro quo, and did not make the sort of clear admission that would resolve the prosecution’s theory on its own.
The question is simple: Why not drop the bribery charge?
Legally, the answer is complicated.
The prosecution can withdraw a charge during a trial. But at this stage, after the defendants have answered the indictment, withdrawal would lead to an acquittal on that allegation. That would mean the state could no longer pursue a conviction on the bribery count through the ordinary course of the case.
If the prosecution instead continues to judgment and the judges acquit Netanyahu of bribery, the state could appeal that acquittal to the Supreme Court.
Now, a criminal prosecution is not an exercise in institutional endurance, and the state has no business maintaining an allegation that it no longer believes it can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. But it does explain why Monday’s statement does not automatically produce a withdrawal.
The Jerusalem Post understands that there is an additional institutional consideration behind the prosecution’s decision to continue pursuing the count, at least for now.
The issue is not only whether the state believes the charge can still succeed at the district court, or whether it would want to preserve the possibility of an appeal should the judges ultimately reject it.
It is also whether a professional legal assessment can be altered because of external factors: that the defendant is the sitting prime minister, or because the case has generated exceptional political pressure, public attacks on the courts, and broad distrust of law-enforcement institutions.
This can express itself in at least two ways. The first is to force the court to sign onto a decision justifying why and how they see it fit not to convict Netanyahu on the bribery charge after all of the extensive evidence the prosecution brought - as opposed to allowing the judges the “easy way out” by them informally convincing the prosecution to withdraw the charge without the court having to make that decision. The Post understands that the prosecution may see a moral value for society in a court being the authority to render the decision on such a high-profile case.
The other way it can express itself is the institutional impact within the prosecution itself.
The prosecution may fear that if it withdraws the bribery charge so late in the case without seeing the trial all the way through, a large amorphous number of prosecutors in future cases coming up against public officials may not even bother to file indictments in the first place.
These prosecutors may lose their courage, absorbing the message that even if they think the evidence proves the public official's guilt, they might lose because of all kinds of non-legal considerations - as even the top prosecutors in the Netanyahu case threw in the towel early, rather than going the full distance.
Alleged quid pro quo between regulatory benefits and favorable coverage
These arguments do not support maintaining a charge that the prosecution no longer believes it can prove; it is an argument that the decision must be made on legal grounds alone.
The prosecution’s position may be that the court’s concerns, however weighty, should ultimately be resolved in a reasoned verdict after the parties present their arguments in full. The state may believe that the evidence, considered as a whole, still permits the court to find the alleged quid pro quo between regulatory benefits and favorable coverage.
There are several areas in which the defense has challenged the bribery theory: the timing of the alleged “guidance meeting” between Netanyahu and former Communications Ministry director-general Shlomo Filber, the meaning of the instructions Filber said he received, and the connection between particular regulatory steps and the alleged favorable coverage at Walla.
Filber maintained that such a meeting took place and that Netanyahu gave instructions concerning Bezeq. But the defense has raised serious questions about the chronology set out in the original indictment, while other parts of Filber’s testimony have been subject to competing interpretations.
The judges themselves have not said which of these issues, if any, lies at the center of their concern. They did not indicate what hardships they see now different from before the testimony. This is a difficult position to put the prosecution in, as even if it were to theoretically take the advice to drop the charge, it wasn't given details of where to begin and how to do that. So how can it be done with no clear instructions - without pulling at threads that don't need to be pulled and could hurt the case?
It would therefore be premature to declare the bribery case legally dead before the court has issued a verdict. Monday’s message from the judges has plainly deepened the questions around the bribery count, but it has left them unanswered.