Nothing Is Off the Table in Netanyahu’s Mafia State of Israel

Harretz Editorial – 2 minutes read time. The picture of Israel that emerged from an investigation published this week by the British newspaper the Guardian and the Israeli website +972 Magazine and its sister site Local Call is akin to the Cosa Nostra. A state whose intelligence agencies have been converted into the attack dogs of Don Netanyahu. According to the report, then-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, acting as the unofficial emissary of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, led an operation designed to disrupt an earlier investigation of Israel in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, allegedly attempting to threaten and extort then-ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. Cohen reportedly appealed to her personally on several occasions between 2017 and 2020, delivering threatening messages meant to dissuade her from investigating Israel. According to the report, Cohen repeatedly exerted pressure on Bensouda to desist from her investigation. “You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family,” he is alleged to have told her. On one occasion, Cohen is said to have shown her photos of her husband, Philip, taken covertly when the couple was visiting London. The report claims that Israel used voice recordings of her husband conducting embarrassing conversations. The results of the investigation are jaw-dropping. The investigation claims that for years, including in recent months, Israel spied on Bensouda’s successor at the ICC, Karim Khan, who 10 days ago requested arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Israel under Netanyahu has gone off the rails. It forgot what it means to be a state. This was well described by former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo in an interview with Yossi Melman. “If such a thing happened, we are not only cutting off the branch on which we sit, but the entire tree trunk,” Pardo said. There is no front that has not been neglected and abandoned, no system that has not been corrupted under Netanyahu’s malignant leadership. Israel is now at risk of being accused of disrupting an international investigation. Anyone who believes that Cohen is a worthy candidate to replace Netanyahu is condemning Israel to a continued deterioration to the world’s margins. Israel is clamoring for political change and for the beginning of a prolonged and thorough rehabilitation process. It must first get rid of the head, Netanyahu, and then toss out his crooked moral standards. The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel