Since the terrorist organization Hamas’s mass murder and kidnapping of Israeli civilians ten days ago, I’ve been finding it difficult to think about anything other than the news from Israel/Palestine. Like many of you, I’ve been spending a lot of time (probably too much) doom-scrolling, worrying about my friends in the region, and anxious about about what will happen next. A lot of people, including university professors and those who have public platforms of some kind, have been weighing in on various aspects of this conflict. I have been hesitant to do so, because I have basically no professional expertise in the most important dimensions of the current crisis (such as the politics and history of the Middle East, military strategy, international humanitarian law and the law of war, etc.). What I write about on this platform is corruption, and the current crisis in Israel has little to do with corruption.

Little, but not nothing. At the risk of engaging in an all-too-common form of academic narcissism (“Look how this biggest important news event relates to the narrow topic I happen to study!”), I did want to offer some brief and tentative thoughts on how corruption, and the response to it, may have played a minor but notable role in precipitating the current crisis.

I’m not going to say much here about corruption on the Palestinian side. In an insightful post from back in June 2021, GAB contributor Magd Lhroob addressed aspects of this issue, noting both how Hamas’s initial electoral success back in 2006 may have had more to do with the perception that the Palestinian Authority (PA) was hopelessly corrupt, and also how the growing frustration of ordinary Gaza residents at Hamas’s corruption strengthens Hamas’s incentives to foment violence with Israel. Here I want to say a few words about corruption issues on the Israeli side, particularly the corruption charges against Prime Minister Netanyahu.

One of the striking things, at least to me, about Israeli public opinion since the October 7^th massacre is that, while Israelis have shown great solidarity and rallied around the flag—a common response when a country is under external attack—they have not rallied around the Prime Minister. Indeed, Netanyahu’s popularity has dropped, and many predict that, once the current war ends (or perhaps even before), his political career is over. That’s a bit unusual—it’s more common for the incumbent executive to get a popularity boost in times when the nation is under threat, or about to go to war perceived by most citizens as just.

There are several reasons that many Israelis are angry with Netanyahu and hold him partially responsible for the military and intelligence failures on October 7, and many of those reasons have nothing to do with corruption. (For example: He sold himself as the hardliner who would keep Israel safe, an image that is obviously undercut by the attacks. According to some critics, Netanyahu’s policies in the occupied West Bank—his support for the settler movement and the (likely illegal) expansion of settlements—led to deployment of too much of Israel’s army in the West Bank, leaving the border with Gaza insufficiently protected. His opposition to a Palestinian state and his associated desire to undercut the PA led him, for many years, to pursue a strategy of (implicitly) strengthening Hamas politically.) But perhaps the most significant factor that has contributed to the outrage of many Israelis (on the center-left and center-right, not just the far left) are Netanyahu’s embrace, in his most recent stint as Prime Minister, of the extreme right—including Israeli political figures that had previously been viewed as too toxic for mainstream parties—and his associated push for “judicial reforms” that would substantially weaken the power of the Israeli courts.

Israelis—not just those on the left, but those from the center and center-right—had been protesting the Netanyahu government’s far-right policies, especially the judicial reform, for months, with the size and duration of these protests remarkable for such a small country. Senior Israeli military leaders, and other commentators, had been warning—again, for months—that the Netanyahu government’s pursuit of this and other divisive policy changes were dividing and weakening the country, and undermining its military preparedness. Last March, Netanyahu fired his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, for calling for a pause on the proposed judicial overhaul, only to reverse this decision under pressure two weeks later. When military leaders warned Netanyahu that his insistence on pushing for the judicial reforms in the face of such deep opposition was fracturing the society and compromising the country’s military readiness, he accused these senior military figures of being left-wing protestors trying to sabotage his government. And so forth.

OK, for those of you who have made it this far into the post, you may still be wondering what any of this has to do with corruption. Maybe nothing—but I think corruption, specifically the multiple corruption cases still pending against Netanyahu (see previous coverage of those cases on the blog here, here, and here) may be a part of the story, for two related reasons.

• First, Netanyahu’s corruption (not yet proven in a court of law, but fairly evident to most members of the Israeli political establishment and informed Israeli citizens) is the main reason he and his party briefly lost power, to a coalition of right-wing, left-wing, and centrist parties, in June 2021. Even conservative politicians who may have agreed with Netanyahu on many substantive issues were disgusted by his corruption, abuse of power, and general lack of integrity, and thought that he posed a threat to Israeli society (much as some American conservatives, such as former Representative Liz Cheney, oppose Donald Trump). But that anti-Netanyahu coalition was unstable, and Netanyahu was able to return to power. He succeeded in part by cutting deals with members of the far right, including ultra-religious parties and other extremist figures (such as the truly vile and racist terrorist sympathizer Itamar Ben-Gvir), that Netanyahu and other mainstream Israeli conservatives had previously kept at arms’ length. These are the sorts of figures that were willing to support Netanyahu despite his apparent corruption. And it was these people on whom Netanyahu, who still facing multiple corruption charges, depends on for support. So even if the famously pragmatic and politically savvy Netanyahu wanted to back down from his most provocative and controversial policies, it was politically difficult for him to do so. In short, when a powerful political leader is thought to be corrupt, and loses the support of more mainstream figures who care about integrity, that leader may be more inclined to seek out, and come to depend on, supporters who do not care as much about corruption.
• Second, although Netanyahu’s signature reform initiative—the “judicial overhaul”—does not on its face have much to do with the criminal charges against Netanyahu (the centerpiece of the proposed reform is a restriction on the courts’ ability to invalidate laws or other government policies on grounds of “unreasonableness”), many observers viewed the judicial overhaul as part of a strategy to undermine the independence of Israeli courts and enable to the government—the Netanyahu government—to exert more control over the appointment of judges and to relax the requirement that government ministers heed the advice of their legal advisors. While parts of this reform are likely more about appeasing the far-right parties (which have bristled at the perceived left-leaning Supreme Court’s check on conservative government policies), other parts may be designed to make it easier for Netanyahu to avoid conviction in the cases against him. (For examples of commentaries suggesting this possibility, see here, here, and here.)

So while corruption is not a central part of the story of the current crisis in Israel/Palestine, and corruption experts have little useful to add to the most pressing concerns of the moment, there is a corruption story lingering in the background, not only on the Palestinian side but on the Israeli side as well. On the Israeli side, the hyper-over-simplified version, suggested above, would go something like this: Netanyahu’s apparent corruption made him toxic to many mainstream politicians, including many mainstream conservative politicians, but it was not enough to make Netanyahu toxic to most Israeli voters. Netanyahu was able to return to power by aligning himself with right-wing extremists. Once back in power, he pursued an agenda that included (1) appeasing those extremists by pushing extremely divisive policies and (2) compromising the power and autonomy of independent legal institutions (courts and independent legal advisors); both prongs of this strategy were pursued less for ideological or policy reasons, and more to keep himself out of prison. That strong personal interest in avoiding criminal liability for his corrupt acts made him unwilling to compromise or moderate his behavior, even when he was warned—repeatedly, by civilian and military experts—that his course of action was endangering Israeli security.

Is there a broader lesson here? I’m not sure. But consider this general observation: Much like a cornered or wounded wild animal, a corrupt politician who faces a serious possibility of legal accountability, but who still wields considerable political power, is extremely dangerous. Because they have little to lose and everything to gain, they may be more inclined to trash institutions, divide society, paralyze the government, and take enormous risks to keep themselves and their cronies out of jail. Thus, political leaders facing serious corruption charges may be especially dangerous, and in extreme cases may pose a risk not only to the rule of law, but to national security.