Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tussles with the law have become a national embarrassment for Israel. Whatever the country, the region or the rest of the world is grappling with — from looming confrontation with Iran and its proxies, a cease-fire with Hamas, saving the planet from overheating, or the fear of another global recession — Netanyahu is fully focused and committed to one overriding issue: Avoiding trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. In the latest instalment of this saga, the Israeli leader is advancing his case for parliamentary immunity. Shameless and unscrupulous to the bitter end, he continues to drag the country through the mud of his alleged crimes while smearing the reputation of the entire Israeli justice system, behavior more associated with a common criminal than a senior public figure. Netanyahu is right about one thing: It is not the media, his political rivals, or even the police and general prosecution who should decide whether he is guilty. Only the courts have that power. Like anyone else, he is innocent unless proved guilty, and he is entitled to a fair trial. However, the power of his position should not grant him immunity from that trial. The concept of immunity was devised to enable elected representatives, and diplomats, to freely exercise their mandate without being exposed to arbitrary or political persecution. That is why Netanyahu is portraying himself as the victim of a witch-hunt by the Left, the media and the justice system. According to him, it is not about his taking champagne, cigars and jewelry worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — which he admits — nor allegedly planning to advance the economic and other interests of media owners in return for more positive coverage in their outlets, but simply a concerted effort to depose him and the Right from power. Regardless of whether those immoral acts, many of them recorded or reported on by the participants, were illegal, there is enough available material to question the suitability of Netanyahu to hold high office. Nevertheless, after an exhaustive police investigation, meticulous examination by the general prosecution, and following a hearing, a procedure that only the most privileged in society enjoy, the attorney general decided that there was sufficient evidence to indict Netanyahu. But instead of accepting this decision with dignity and at least suspending himself from the most important position in the country, one that demands the office holder’s full attention, Netanyahu glued himself to the prime ministerial seat and resorted to ugly incitements and manipulative acts to avoid facing justice. Demanding immunity and embarking on an all-out assault on the justice system and the foundation of Israeli pluralism is one side of Netanyahu’s strategy to escape his legal predicament. He is also bent on undermining the very foundations of the democratic system and its governance in the process. In utter defiance of the justice system, let alone any moral standards in public life, last week Netanyahu appointed one of his most loyal lieutenants, David Bitan, agriculture minister, even though police last year recommended that Bitan face indictment for taking bribes on 12 different occasions; this in addition to other ministers serving in the government with police recommendations to prosecute them for corruption, among them Interior Minister Arye Dery and newly promoted Health Minister Yaacov Litzman. Demanding immunity and embarking on an all-out assault on the justice system and the foundation of Israeli pluralism is one side of Netanyahu’s strategy to escape his legal predicament. Yossi Mekelberg There is a double irony in that this latest round of appointments was prompted because those positions had all been held concurrently by Netanyahu himself, and in line with a previous High Court ruling he was compelled to hand them to others because of his indictment. That a defendant should be handing out ministerial positions to suspects is bad enough, but what’s worse is that the ruling doesn’t bar the prime minister himself from retaining his position if indicted. Consequently, there are those who have “only” been recommended to be charged yet allowed to continue as ministers, while the one who has actually been indicted is allowed to remain at the top of the governing pyramid. This makes a complete mockery of the rule of law and of clean and good governance. In a matter of weeks the Israeli electorate will go to the polls for the third time in less than 11 months. Voters should ask themselves whether the right-wing bloc is being kept together mainly to advance the vested interests of those suspected of filling their own pockets at the public’s expense, rather than by any ideological conviction. In the case of Netanyahu, any immunity granted by the Knesset would last only until the election in March, and in the unfortunate event that he won that election and formed the next government it would have to be approved again. If this happened, Israel would be led by a prime minister with a cloud of corruption allegations hanging over him for as long as he was in power. It is not only a case of “fit and proper” criteria that must hold sway in public life, but also a practical issue; the judgment of the chief decision maker is in grave danger of being eclipsed by his determination to cling on to power, not for the greater good but to avoid facing prosecution. In a country never too far from a military confrontation on various fronts, the thought of such a prime minister presiding over a government with several Cabinet members suspected of similar behavior is frankly scary. Moreover, it sends a message that abuse of power is permissible for those in public life. Under these circumstances, how can the public trust that any decision taken by this Israeli government is being taken even remotely for their benefit or in the best interests of the country as a whole? Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations at Regent’s University London, where he is head of the International Relations and Social Sciences Program. He is also an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international written and electronic media. Twitter: @YMekelberg Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News" point-of-view