You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Benjamin Netanyahu Gets First Shot at Forming New Israeli Government as Corruption Trial Opens

HeadlineApr 06, 2021

Israel’s president has given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a chance to form a coalition government, after elections in March failed to produce a clear winner for the fourth consecutive round of voting.

This comes as Netanyahu’s corruption trial has opened at a district court in Jerusalem. Netanyahu is accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. On Monday, the former CEO of an online news site testified he was ordered by the company’s owner to drop negative stories about Netanyahu and to trash his rivals. Prosecutors say that, in exchange, Netanyahu enacted regulatory decisions worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the owner. Netanyahu is also accused of trying to push tax breaks to benefit an Israeli billionaire movie producer after receiving gifts from him — including expensive cigars and champagne. Netanyahu has repeatedly lashed out at reports over corruption, calling them “fake news.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “This is how they try to overthrow a powerful prime minister from the right. This is what an attempt at a coup looks like.”

Topics:
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top