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Netanyahu has been investigated by the police since 2006 and is currently undergoing trial where he is charged for "bribery, fraud, and breach of trust by him and close political allies within his inner circle during his fourth and fifth terms as Israel's Prime Minister".

Are there any reliable third-party evaluations of the trustworthiness of these allegations? I.e. perhaps there was a group of American or European scholars from Israel who have evaluated the publicly available records and published their conclusion?

JonathanReez
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  • Reliable third party evaluations? other than Israel Hayom and Haaretz? – CGCampbell Aug 22 '23 at 15:47
  • @CGCampbell ideally some sort of independent commission of both left and right wing legal scholars. It’s been ongoing for 15 years now so I assume something like that might’ve been published. Based on my understanding a lot of people in Israel have a “Netanyahu derangement syndrome” and thus cannot be trusted to evaluate him fairly. – JonathanReez Aug 22 '23 at 16:21
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    Hmmm, if he is indeed guilty/innocent of said allegations, isn't that for a trial to decide - by hearing the evidence both ways? Rather than shutting the trial down? Or are you solely asking if the indictments to date seem to be solid or not? There have of course been cases where charges were only laid to embarrass a political opponent. Is that what you are asking? Whether the charges are, at first glance, so weak, or the allegations so untrustworthy, that they should never have gone to trial in the first place? – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Aug 22 '23 at 22:20
  • @ItalianPhilosophers4Monica yes, exactly, I'm asking whether or not independent experts believe that the trial is a political circus or not. – JonathanReez Aug 22 '23 at 22:42
  • You can observe that Netanyahu himself claims the charges are baseless and shouldn't go to trial but acts in a way as if he believes them to be very justified. He is currently trying to reform the government and rule of law in Israel in way that would allow him to either shut down or just ignore the outcome of such a trial, see your own previous question on the justice reform in Israel. – quarague Aug 23 '23 at 09:35
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    @quarague he certainly believes that the charges could result in jail time for him. But that doesn’t mean that he believes the charges to be justified. – JonathanReez Aug 23 '23 at 13:36

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