JERUSALEM – After a Manhattan jury convicted former President Trump on Thursday of falsifying business records, legal experts have commented on the similarities between his case and the ongoing Israeli prime minister on trial Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel’s then Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit accused Netanyahu of fraud, breach of trust and bribery. This legal case began four years ago and is still ongoing. Netanyahu has flatly denied all the allegations against him.
Fox News Digital reached out to leading legal experts who are intimately familiar with the rigorous and flawless electoral and judicial systems of both democracies.
Eugene Kontorovich, a professor at George Mason University Scalia Law School and a scholar at the Jerusalem think tank Kohelet Policy Forum, told Fox News Digital, “Israel has always been a hotbed of threats to freedom and Western democracy. The vague and incomprehensible charges used against President Trump and the political indictments on victimless crimes are very similar to the indictments of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Israel’s situation is even worse — Netanyahu was indicted four years ago after years of investigation, leaving an indictment casting an inexplicable shadow over his political career.”
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President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend the Abraham Accords signing ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on September 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
“Besides, prosecutors in Israel are not elected or even politically appointed, so it is not bitter consolation that both sides can play the same game,” he added.
He added, “But it may be a good sign for Trump that Netanyahu’s political opponents thought a series of criminal proceedings would end his political career, but instead he won a series of elections, as voters stopped taking the indictments seriously.”
Modern politics is replete with examples in which the court system has been turned into a blunt weapon to railway politicians and dissidents who harass political parties and opponents.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a hearing at the Magistrate Court in Rishon LeZion, Israel on January 23, 2023. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP)
Perhaps the most famous recent case is authoritarian Russian President Vladimir Putin’s jailing of his most powerful political rival. alexey navalnyHe was found dead in an Arctic penal colony in February. Putin’s critics claimed he was behind the killing. Russia’s opaque judiciary sentenced Navalny to 19 years in prison for extremism. His supporters say Putin persecuted him because he was the first politician to form a national Russian opposition movement that sought to end Putin’s more than two decades of control over Russia.
In 2023, the late Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was found innocent He was accused of influencing witnesses in connection with alleged sex parties called “Bunga Bunga” at his villa in Milan. He claimed his political enemies fabricated the sex scandal allegations.
Silvio Berlusconi casts his vote during the Lombardy regional elections in Milan, Italy on February 12, 2023. (Piero Cruciatti/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Controversial The Italian politician died last yearHe called himself the “Jesus Christ of politics”. However, in 2013 Italy’s High Court confirmed Berlusconi’s conviction for tax fraud.
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted as the country’s leader in 2022 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Multiple prison sentences for corruptionKhan argues that the cases against him are politically motivated and his supporters have taken to the streets across the Southeast Asian country to protest his imprisonment.
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi speaking to the media at the Lahore High Court office in Lahore, Pakistan on July 17, 2023. (AP Photo/KM Choudhary, File)
Khan, a former cricket star turned Islamist politician, now has 170 legal cases pending against him. These charges include terrorism, inciting violence and corruption. In March 2022, Khan claimed at a rally that a foreign conspiracy was working against him. He said a document showed that “everything would be forgiven if Imran Khan is removed from power.” A month later, Khan was removed from the post of Prime Minister through a no-confidence motion in Parliament.
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Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, a lawyer, told Fox News Digital, “One of the most important characteristics of a functioning democracy is the ability to instill confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary. In the Trump case, the prosecution and the court have pursued a frivolous case and done great damage to our democracy. I’m less familiar with the prime minister’s issues, but it’s clear that there is a significant segment of the population in Israel that is losing confidence in the judiciary.”
Friedman, who served during the Trump administration and played a key role in moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the Israeli capital Jerusalem, said, “This is always a byproduct of prosecuting political opponents. When this is done, the facts and the law must be compelling and even overwhelming. That is clearly not the case in either case.”
