People had high hopes for Case 3,000. They were convinced that if only Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could somehow be linked to alleged corruption in the 2015 procurement of submarines they would be able to unseat him without having to get the approval of voters. The Israel Police, the State Attorney's Office and the mainstream media have all colluded to achieve an over-arching goal: to topple the Right.
Some were even convinced that young attorneys would one day look up to Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit and call him the "attorney general who brought down a prime minister." Israel Police investigators were already thinking about how they would tell their grandkids about the tricks they employed to end the Right's grip on power. Media personalities archived footage so that one day, when young interns asked them to tell them how they acted with courage against the forces of darkness, they would be able show them the clips.
To incriminate Netanyahu, they have worked tirelessly to create an assembly line of state's witnesses. Investigators identified the weakest links and applied insurmountable pressure that was very reminiscent of Soviet interrogation techniques from the gulag: threats, mold-infested cells, and arrests whose sole purpose was to make detainees buckle. They also employed carrots, by promising the world (and lenient sentencing) to those willing to incriminate others.
Courts have been highly critical of the police as of late for trying to force people to confess to crimes they have not committed. You would think that the investigators would heed the courts' advice, but it seems that these tactics are still very much present.
Shaul Elovitch, the Bezeq controlling shareholder embroiled in Case 4,000, has faced unimaginable pressure from police to incriminate Netanyahu, but he has stood his ground.
The big enchilada, as far as police were concerned, was Miki Ganor, the state's witness in Case 3,000 (the "submarine affair"). Investigators and state prosecutors were ecstatic when it turned out that Ganor would be able to incriminate a whole host of people who had taken part in the allegedly improper procurement of submarines and other naval vessels.
The media was jubilant, and evening news broadcasts kept running archive footage of Netanyahu entering a submarine, as if it were his private yacht rather than a military vessel procured for critical national security needs.
Police kept leaking material from the investigations and important prosecutors kept delivering remarks at conferences where judges would be in the audience, explaining that the prime minister had played an important role in the deal.
Even after the attorney general made it clear that Netanyahu was not suspected of any wrongdoing in the submarine affair, things didn't calm down and the media kept doing the Netanyahu-haters' bidding. They simply could not accept that the effort to incriminate him had failed miserably.
In the past few days, Benny Gantz's Blue and White party has decided to bring Case 3,000 back to the limelight with the help of media heavyweights. Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, No. 3 on the Blue and White candidate list, called Netanyahu a traitor.
A terrible accusation like that is simply designed to make the embarrassing report on Gantz's hacked phone go away. I never thought and election campaign could sink so low.
The phone saga would have gone away long ago had it not been for the political rookies in Blue and White. Their embarrassing attempts to belittling a report that Iran had hacked their party leader's device only show that Gantz is unfit for the job of prime minister.
The public has a right to know whether Gantz would be an easy target for extortion because of sensitive information on his phone, including compromising personal information.
Ganor chose an interesting time to renege on his state's witness deal with the prosecution. He had very strong reservations about the deal as early as in 2018, and now that he has walked back his pledge to cooperate, prosecutors have taken pains to stress that the case is rock solid, even without his testimony.
If that is true, why did they have to sign a state's witness agreement with such a high-profile (alleged) criminal to begin with? State's witnesses are not supposed to be so high up in the crime business.
It turned out that Ganor's deal had only one purpose: to incriminate Netanyahu so investigators wouldn't have to devote too many resources to doing it themselves.
This attempt failed. Now that Ganor has turned on the prosecutors, they decided to detain him for obstruction of justice. They hope this will lead him retract his retraction.
My suggestion to law enforcement officials who have been frustrated by Ganor's actions: wait a few more weeks. Let the public speak at the ballot box, then accept the verdict.
This would mean a lot for Israel's character as a democracy in which rule of law serves the people rather than the political agenda of the media, the State Attorney's Office and the police.
As for the corruption cases, I would like to remind people, including all the purists who say Netanyahu cannot stay one on the job a single day more because he will soon face a pre-indictment hearing, that there is something called presumption of innocence.
Let the attorney general hold the hearing without any outside pressure, and ultimately, if he decides to indict, the courts will have to rule one way or another. The attempt to fuse politics with the judiciary is dangerous and reckless.
