Why 2019 Could Be Make-or-Break Year for Netanyahu

For Benjamin Netanyahu, 2019 could be the year he surpasses founding father David Ben-Gurion as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. It could also be the year he’s forced to step down to fight the legal battle of his life. The Israeli parliament’s decision to trigger early elections April 9 means that Netanyahu will be running for re-election even as the attorney general mulls whether to indict the prime minister in a sprawling corruption investigation.

After many months of investigation, police in February recommended charging Netanyahu with bribery, fraud and breach of trust for trading his influence for favors in two separate cases. Later, they suggested charging him in a third case involving Israel’s largest telecommunications company, Bezeq. Attorney General Avihai Mandelblit must decide whether to file charges against a sitting Israeli prime minister for the first time. Israel’s Channel 10 television station reported in mid-December that Mandelblit’s office thinks there’s enough evidence to indict Netanyahu in at least one of the three cases. Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing. He’s described the investigations as a witch hunt waged by left-wing political opponents.