Foreign Minister Gideon Saar addressed criticism on Sunday over his reversal on the Netanyahu trial, explaining why he moved from supporting the indictment against the prime minister to calling for the charges to be dropped.
"Over recent years I have called again and again, in media interviews, at public conferences and on social media, to end the saga of the Netanyahu trial. I did this as far back as 2023, when I was in the opposition," he wrote.
"The case long ago became a grotesque of law enforcement. The watershed was the judges' call to reconsider the bribery charge, which the prosecution insisted on ignoring."
"During the trial, severe failures and even criminal offenses committed by law enforcement authorities were exposed again and again. The prosecution went to the trouble of recruiting no fewer than three (!) state's witnesses for this spurious case. The bribery charge (based on a precedent-setting clause of media coverage) collapsed during the hearing of the case. Today it became clear that the relevant publications at its foundation were never even examined by the person who signed the indictment."
"We are left with the vague offense of breach of trust, which was dressed up, for example, on a charge under the Gifts Law in order to strengthen it."
