Isolated Netanyahu has few friends left

BEHIND the high wire fences of the Israeli Justice Ministry, set somewhat incongruously in the heart of the Arab eastern sector of Jerusalem, the lights have been burning long into the night at the offices of Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, and State Attorney Edna Arbel.

It is these two officials - he a high voiced, joke telling former cabinet secretary and district court judge; she a tough, taciturn, veteran prosecutor - who will decide in the next few days whether to make Israeli history and press corruption charges, as police investigators are recommending, against the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu.

His usual confident, upbeat self at a Likud Party rally yesterday, Mr Netanyahu has indicated that he intends to fight this one out, that he will not go quietly. His aides tell everyone who will listen that they are certain of his innocence, certain no indictment will be served, certain he'll emerge untainted even if it is.

But then, Mr Netanyahu and these same aides professed themselves certain three months ago, when the "Bar On Affair" broke, that all the allegations were absurd, and that the police investigation would turn up nothing of substance.

What is remarkable about Mr Netanyahu's current spot of legal bother, however, is the isolation in which he already finds himself, the rapidity with which his cabinet colleagues, almost without exception, are distancing themselves from him.

Mr Rubinstein and Mrs Arbel have yet to decide whether he should be tried for alleged improprieties surrounding January's short lived appointment of Jerusalem lawyer Ronnie Bar On as the state's attorney general. But the resounding silence yesterday from the ministers who might have been expected to rally to his defence suggested that, even if he is not charged, he may not be able to hold on to his job.

That isolation stems from many factors, but none more crucial than the perverse manner in which Mr Netanyahu has handled many of his personnel decisions in the brief, 10 month period since he succeeded Shimon Peres and became Israel's ninth Prime Minister. He alienated the Finance Minister, Dan Meridor, by initially trying to leave him out of the cabinet; he did the same with Ariel Sharon, the infrastructure minister who had campaigned so energetically on his behalf; he has maintained a long simmering rivalry with Foreign Minister, David Levy, who threatened to resign three times in the first few weeks of the government's term; and he has slighted his Defence Minister, Yitzhak Mordechai, apparently out of concern for Mr Mordechai's burgeoning popularity with the Likud rank and file.

All these key figures share varying degrees of disaffection with the Prime Minister. None of them would be remotely sorry to see him fall.

What is worse for Mr Netanyahu is that each of the minor parties in his governing coalition also has its reasons for contemplating his departure with equanimity.

NATAN Sharansky's Russian immigrant party and Avigdor Kahalani's Third Way are both riding high in the polls, and could face the electorate confident of increasing their standing in the Enesset if a Netanyahu resignation were eventually to lead to new general elections. The National Religious Party, standard bearer for the West Bank settlers, was furious with Mr Netanyahu for sanctioning January's Israeli military pull out from most of Hebron, and had been quietly seeking around for a more "solid" right wing prime ministerial candidate even before the "Bar On Affair" exploded.

And sources in the Shas ultra Orthodox party - whose leader, Aryeh Deri, was allegedly the moving force behind the appointment of Mr BarOn, reportedly hoping to gain a plea bargain in his own corruption trial from a weak attorney general - were hinting yesterday at a possible imminent cabinet departure.

What all this means is that, no matter how the prosecution authorities decide to proceed, the very shadow of corruption now hovering over a Prime Minister deeply unloved by his cabinet colleagues may be enough to bring about his downfall.

In the fast moving, world of domestic Israeli politics, it is foolish to try to predict developments more than a few hours in advance. But the prospect of a minister or two resigning, and triggering a domino effect that essentially destroys the cabinet, is by no means remote.

DETAILS of the police allegations concerning Mr Netanyahu have yet to be publicised. But they presumably centre on the fact that Mr Netanyahu forced Mr Bar On's appointment through a reluctant cabinet, reportedly against the advice of his own legal advisers, when he ought to have been aware the candidate had none of the qualities or expertise required of an attorney general. At the very least, he should have known there was something fishy going on.

His advisers were attempting yesterday to paint the affair as some kind of elitist, leftist conspiracy against a government primarily supported by working class and rightwing Israelis. But, while there might have been some mileage in this strategy were the legal establishment leading the calls for Mr Netanyahu's indictment, it is hard to see many Israelis being persuaded that their no nonsense police force is a bastion of the middle class establishment.

In the early days of the Bar On Affair, the Israeli media christened the scandal "Bibigate", but then eschewed that nickname as the weeks went by and the conventional wisdom had it that the stench of corruption would not rise as high as the Prime Minister. Now the Netanyahu Nixon comparison seems unavoidable, as Israel's increasingly isolated political leader and his few loyal aides take on the media, the legal authorities and even the police in an effort to survive before a slightly baffled and rather sceptical public.