Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned on Tuesday to the defense of his relationship with businessman Arnon Milchan, as his testimony in the corruption trial entered what is expected to be its final stage.
Netanyahu appeared at the Tel Aviv District Court for continued re-examination by his attorney, Amit Hadad, after the prosecution completed its cross-examination last week.
Re-examination is a limited stage of testimony, intended to clarify issues raised during cross-examination rather than reopen the evidence more broadly. Throughout Tuesday’s hearing, the judges blocked several of Hadad’s questions on the grounds that Netanyahu had already answered them during his cross-examination.
Hadad focused on Case 1000, the so-called gifts affair, in which Netanyahu is charged with fraud and breach of trust. The indictment alleges that he received expensive gifts, including cigars and champagne, worth hundreds of thousands of shekels from Milchan and Australian businessman James Packer, while acting in matters connected to Milchan’s interests.
Netanyahu maintains it was a genuine friendship
The defense has maintained that the relationship was one of genuine friendship rather than an improper exchange between a public official and a benefactor.
To reinforce that argument, Hadad showed Netanyahu photographs from social and family gatherings with Milchan that predated Netanyahu’s return to national politics. Netanyahu described the images as evidence of a close relationship between the two families, including during periods when he said he did not expect to return to public life.
“They eulogized me at the time and saw me as a political corpse,” Netanyahu said of the period after his first term as prime minister. “And I saw myself that way too.”
Hadad sought to use the photographs to counter the prosecution’s suggestion that Netanyahu had always expected to return to political power, and that Milchan’s access to him remained valuable even when Netanyahu was temporarily out of office.
The judges also considered Hadad’s attempts to revisit questions concerning Milchan’s alleged access to Netanyahu during meetings and matters involving Milchan’s US visa. Prosecutors objected that Netanyahu had already provided clear answers, and the bench largely accepted that position.
At one point, Hadad complained that the court was preventing the defense from exposing what he called a misleading picture created during cross-examination.
Presiding Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman responded that Netanyahu had ultimately answered the questions put to him and that the defense’s objections had been recorded during the proceedings.
Netanyahu then departed from a question concerning the merger of television networks Keshet and Reshet to deliver a broader attack on the investigation.
Netanyahu: 'I dedicate my life to the State of Israel'
“I dedicate my life to the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said. He added that when he was questioned by police about a decade ago, he had believed in and defended the legal system, but had not imagined that investigators would “brazenly lie to a prime minister.”
Netanyahu accused investigators of attempting to construct a “fictitious reality” in order to remove him from office. The judges repeatedly sought to steer him back to the specific question before him.
Likud MK Tally Gotliv and Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen attended part of the hearing.
The session took place as Netanyahu is also navigating an internal Likud dispute over the party’s next Knesset list. Per reports, while Likud primaries are expected to go ahead, Netanyahu is seeking to secure several personally reserved places on the slate for candidates of his choosing.
Once Hadad completes the re-examination in Cases 1000 and 4000, Netanyahu’s own testimony is expected to conclude, though the wider trial will continue with the remaining defense case.