JERUSALEM — Media allegations of government misconduct have sparked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s denials and a call from at least one government minister to shut down Israel Television if the charges prove false.
As word of the alleged misconduct filled the Israeli media this week, the country’s highest prosecutor ordered a police investigation into alleged corruption surrounding the short-lived appointment of Jerusalem lawyer Roni Bar-On as attorney general.
“The supreme national interest required that we uncover the true circumstances of the appointment,” Edna Arbel, state attorney and acting attorney general, said Sunday after two hours of consultations with senior police officials.
“I do not even so much as imagine that anyone tried behind my back to conduct such a maneuver,” Netanyahu said. “So far as I know this is utterly baseless.”
Meanwhile, Elyakim Rubinstein, a widely respected Jerusalem District Court judge, was unanimously approved by the cabinet Wednesday as the next attorney general.
Rubinstein, 50, was made district judge two years ago. Before that, he was a member of the Israeli delegation in the peace talks with Egypt, and led the Israeli negotiating team in peace talks with Jordan. He has also served as Cabinet secretary.
The allegations surrounding Bar-On’s appointment surfaced last week, when Israel Television reported that the ultrareligious Shas Party, which has two ministers in the government and 10 seats in the Knesset, had promised to back the Hebron redeployment agreement when it came before the Cabinet and Parliament earlier this month in exchange for Bar-On’s appointment.
According to the report, Bar-On in turn agreed to a plea bargain for Shas Knesset member Aryeh Deri, who is on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of public trust.
Netanyahu flatly denied the charges Friday of last week, calling for a police investigation into the allegations.
Two days after the Cabinet approved his appointment as attorney general earlier this month, Bar-On turned down the position.
Bar-On, a Likud activist, had come under intense criticism from government and legal circles, which charged that he had gotten the appointment because of his political loyalties and close association with Justice Minister Tzachi Hanegbi.
Bar-On had been picked to replace Michael Ben-Yair, who announced his resignation in December.
Police investigators met Sunday with officials from Israel Television, who said they would not compromise their journalistic ethics by revealing the sources of their report.
When launching the probe, Arbel instructed police investigators to obtain the evidence on which Israel Television based its report, by court order if necessary.
The alleged deal drew sharp reactions from government ministers at the weekly Cabinet meeting Friday of last week.
“If the claims are not true, then the television must be closed down,” Tourism Minister Moshe Katsav was quoted as saying.
Asked what should be done if the allegations were proven true, Katsav told reporters, “In that case, the government does not have the right to exist.”
In an interview with Israel Television’s Channel 2, Deri denied the Channel 1 report, and said he has been hounded by the media for seven years.
Meanwhile, Channel 1 on Sunday stood behind its report on what has come to be called the “Bar-On for Hebron” affair.
Sources in Netanyahu’s office accused Channel 1 of first implying that Netanyahu was involved in the affair, and then stating that “Netanyahu was not in on the secret of the deal Bar-On promised Deri.”
Channel 1 sources, including reporter Ayala Hasson, who broke the story, denied changing their original piece, saying they only reported that Netanyahu was aware of the pressures to appoint Bar-On, but that they did not say he knew of the deal itself.
Deri himself continued to vehemently deny that he sought to win a plea bargain — or that he foiled the appointment of his own private attorney, Dan Avi-Yitzhak, to the attorney general post.
Deri dismissed hints by Channel 2 that it was Avi-Yitzhak who first leaked the accusations of “Bar-on for Hebron” to Channel 1.