A heated hearing in the Tel Aviv District Court on Tuesday, during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s testimony in Case 2000, turned into a battle over courtroom procedure and the narrative that will be preserved in the record. Defense lawyers Sharon Kleiman, Amit Hadad, and Jacques Chen accused the prosecution of using partial facts and trying to reshape the bribery allegations as the hearing progressed.
The defense’s main claim was that prosecutors were now trying to attribute to Netanyahu a form of “tying” or linkage that does not appear in the original indictment. Kleiman pointed to paragraph 44, arguing it says that Netanyahu did not ask for or condition a bribe, yet the prosecution was presenting a new theory in cross-examination. She said the state had to choose, either he asked for something, or the indictment’s wording that he did not ask should stand.
Prosecutor Alon Gildin rejected that argument, saying the indictment already contains a factual description of Netanyahu’s exchanges with Noni Mozes, and that a distinction must be made between the fourth conversation, where bribery is alleged, and the fifth. The fight then shifted to evidence over Walla, with Chen demanding documents that would challenge a presentation by former Walla owner Ilan Yesha about the site’s importance. He accused the prosecution of relying on misleading statistics, while prosecutor Yehudit Tirosh said Netanyahu had already said he did not know the figures, so there was no reason to expand the discussion.
The arguments also centered on how the testimony should be conducted. Chen suggested Netanyahu read parts of the transcript himself, but judges and prosecutors worried it would confuse him. He complained that the prosecution’s approach forces the defense to present answers in tiny pieces, instead of allowing a full response, and cited earlier treatment of former Netanyahu spokesman Ran Baratz as a precedent for completing the picture. Netanyahu himself expressed frustration, saying, “I am not a lawyer, so I admit I do not know what stones I am stepping on to cross this river.”
