'Media's obsession with Netanyahu undercuts democracy'
Esteemed legalist Alan Dershowitz: Israel should immunize Netanyahu from prosecution, defer any investigation until his term elapses • Left cannot defeat Netanyahu in the polls, so it is using these probes, the media to push him out of office, he says.
Boaz Bismuth
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'Media's obsession with Netanyahu undercuts democracy'
Esteemed legalist Alan Dershowitz: Israel should immunize Netanyahu from prosecution, defer any investigation until his term elapses • Left cannot defeat Netanyahu in the polls, so it is using these probes, the media to push him out of office, he says.
Boaz Bismuth
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu | Photo credit: Reuters
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After telling Israel Hayom that U.S. President Barack Obama's presidency would "end up in the dustbin of history," esteemed legal scholar Professor Alan Dershowitz said that he believed many in the Israeli media were actively trying to undermine Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Israeli democracy as a whole.
Dershowitz criticized the various police investigations against Netanyahu as being ill-timed, adding the media's focus on the prime minister's private life was undermining proper government.
"I think this reflects a general problem around the world when democracy is being undercut by investigations and media attacks on properly elected officials. I think there are investigations that should be delayed until after the public official, the prime minister or president of a country, finish their term of office.
"The prime minister in this case has to work 24/7 particularly now, between now and the time when President Obama leaves office, to respond to the U.N. Security Council resolution, to the [Secretary of State John] Kerry speech, to try to prevent another Security Council resolution -- the idea that the prime minister is now going to have to be questioned about what appears to be relatively trivial incidents, really undercuts democracy."
Dershowitz stressed that any investigation should be postponed "until after he [Netanyahu] leave office, because the idea that he has to now take time from serving the people of Israel to prepare, work with lawyers, to spend hours with investigators, in what appears to be -- from everything I can see -- relatively trivial accusations; I mean, if they were serious accusations, the statute of limitations can be extended. Nobody is about the law, we all agree with that, but he can be held accountable after he leaves office. Not interfere with what's going on while he's in office. ... I think it's a mistake to be investigating the prime minister at this time. Let the investigation go forward, but the questioning should wait until he leaves office."
Dershowitz attributed the media's obsession with Netanyahu and his family to the fact that "they [the Left] can't beat him through democratic means, so they're trying to use these investigations and the media to push him out of office. That would really undercut democracy. He's been elected by a proper method of election in Israel and he should be left to complete his term without interference. If there are issued they should be pursued after he leaves office.
"That's the way it is in many countries around the world. In many countries around the world the chief executive has immunity from any prosecution except the most serious crimes, such as murder or treason, but for other events many countries immunize the chief executive until after he finished his term in office. It would be wrong to immunize anybody completely, but here we're talking merely about a postponement and I took the same position when they where deposing Bill Clinton when he was president. It really interfered with his presidency and in the end it turned out to be much ado about nothing."
Asked whether he thought this intervention means anything beyond what it appears to be, he said, "I know the attorney general of Israel, he is a very distinguished and decent man ... and I think he is doing what he believes is the right thing under Israeli law, what I think is wrong is Israeli law -- it has to change and defer these kinds of investigations until after the prime minister leaves office."
As for the Yedioth Ahronoth-led media campaign to unseat Netanyahu, Dershowitz said that while "we all believe in freedom of the press and freedom of speech, but both Yedioth Ahronoth and other media seem to be obsessively focused on the prime minister, his wife, his sons, the dog -- beyond anything I've ever seen in a democracy.
"I've never seen a situation where the media has been so obsessively focused on what appears to be the most trivial details -- whether a prime minister's wife helped care for her dying father, whether or not furniture should have been in one location or another location -- these are the kind of things that would never happen in the U.S. In the U.S., the White House pays for everything, and in Israel there's apparently a 200-page book about how you deal with costs in the prime minister's house.
"I've been to the PM's house ... and I don't think there's a country in the world that has a cheaper prime minister's residence than Israel. I mean, every governor in a poor American state ... has a much more elaborate residence than what the State of Israel has for the prime minister. ... You know, I've been at the prime minister's house when it rained and they had to put a bucket [out] because it was raining into the house. The obsessive focus on every detail of the Netanyahu family's life really does, I think, undercut democracy and undercut the rule of law. The rule of law should apply equally to everybody, but it shouldn't obsessively focus on a properly elected official."
But as the law in Israel is about everything, should Netanyahu be the exception to the rule? Dershowitz said he believed other investigations waged against different prime ministers should have been postponed until their terms had elapsed, as well.
"The attorney general has made it completely clear that the issues involved in this [Netanyahu's] case are not such as those with [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert or with [former Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon, but these are much, much, much less serious allegations, and even serious allegations ... in my view, should be deferred until after he leaves office. I don't think the investigation should undercut democratically elected officials.
"Most importantly, Netanyahu is the only prime minister of Israel -- there is no other prime minister at this point, and he is the one who is responsible for presenting Israel's case not only in the media, but he has been on the phone every hour with officials from countries that who have the vote at the U.N.; he has to be pressing Israel's position; he has to be defending Israel in every forum around the world and the idea that even a minute -- a minute -- is taken away from that important job to answer questions about whether or not a piece of furniture is in Caesarea or on Balfour Street [in Jerusalem], or whether or not other relatively minor issues are true or false, it seems to me like a complete undercutting of democracy," Dershowitz said.
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=39219