Netanyahu trial drama: Defendant no. 1 or prime minister?

Tuesday’s main public corruption trial event was wild by all measures, starting with a debate about who was testifying.

Was it “Defendant No. 1” or was it “the Prime Minister?”

Both of these people are Benjamin Netanyahu, but lead Case 4000 Prosecutor Yehudit Tirosh demanded the right to refer to Netanyahu as “Defendant No. 1,” symbolizing that this is his role in this case and that being prime minister does not leave him above the law of the common citizen.

Netanyahu’s defense lawyer, Amit Hadad, and MK (and audience member) Tally Gotliv, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, called out that this was disrespectful and that Tirosh must refer to him as “the Prime Minister.”

Putting aside questions of respect, they clearly want to highlight to the judges that he is special and his time is more valuable than others, so that maybe they will acquit him or at least at some point allow him more breaks from testifying than a regular citizen who is not running a country.

Eventually, Tirosh agreed to call him “Defendant No. 1 and the Prime Minister.”

Regardless of the prosecution’s feelings on that issue, Netanyahu’s job running the country broke into the proceedings.

Less than an hour into his testimony, he was called out for a two-minute break when an aide brought him an emergency, small handwritten note.

Surprisingly, he was actually back in less than five minutes, and the trial continued without many further emergency interruptions, though there were standard witness breaks in between major subjects and for lunch.

In all, Netanyahu testified for about four hours of the six hours set aside for him.

The hearing started late as the court spokespeople worked in overdrive to try to find additional non-existent seats for all of the ministers and MKs who showed up to show their support for Netanyahu.

Generally, the courtroom was set up for the judges, the lawyers on both sides, Netanyahu, and a limited set number of seats for the media.

Hadad also spoke for about an hour in his opening statement for the defense’s case.

During Netanyahu’s testimony, he got by far the most excited when discussing his election campaigns and explaining the moves and counter moves in messaging between himself and his now more than decade-long rival, Naftali Bennett.

Recounting major historical diplomatic achievements was fun for him, but explaining how he and his spin masters tried to outwit Bennett and put him in his place was what really got his juices to surge.

AS NETANYAHU testified, the three judges had completely different reactions.

Judge Moshe Baram seems to be a fan, at least in principle, being that he was smiling and nodding a lot with a variety of points that Netanyahu argued.

Presiding Judge Rivkah Friedman-Feldman was extremely focused on Netanyahu, barely taking her eyes off of him, but kept her standard poker face that betrays no emotions.

Judge Oded Shaham seemed the most bored of the three, sometimes holding his gray-bearded chin when he was paying closer attention, but sometimes staring off to the side, possibly reflecting some impatience with some of the non-legal spin and longer descriptions the defendant gave in his answers.

Netanyahu was never bored, refusing to sit despite both Friedman-Feldman and Hadad suggesting that he do so to conserve energy over a long day.

He made brief exceptions to sit when Hadad and Tirosh were going at it about esoteric legal procedural points about which he could not add anything.

Mostly those arguments had to do with Tirosh trying to limit how many free punches Netanyahu would take at the prosecution that were not specifically related to parts of the case where he had firsthand knowledge, and to prevent Hadad from bringing up new issues.

But there was a colorful moment where Tirosh and Judge Baram pressed Hadad about bringing up a new document signed by Netanyahu, to which he responded that he has only three lawyers on his team whereas the 20 lawyers for the prosecution “could conquer a small village.”

This was even more comical because while Tirosh is a tough verbal debater, she is also extremely short.

The wildest part of the case was, unsurprisingly, Gotliv.

Throughout the proceedings, she would randomly call things out to show her anger with how her party’s leader was being treated.

While Netanyahu might have wanted such fireworks at some points, Gotliv clearly went over the line at others of even her boss, with Hadad trying to tell her to zip it, and her lashing back out at him.

The most surprising thing was that she was not tossed from the courtroom despite repeatedly ignoring warnings from Friedman-Feldman, who could not hide her utterly detesting Gotliv when she spoke to her.

Ministers present ahead of testimony

Then there were the Bored Ministers’ Sweepstakes.

Itamar Ben-Gvir and Shlomo Karhi win for being the most bored ministers – they showed up before the testimony started, but did not even stick around for Netanyahu to open his mouth.

Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana was the next to leave after around 40 minutes followed by Environmental Minister Idit Silman.

Who was there to the end? You guessed it: Gotliv.

The show returns at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow and then Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for most of the next two months.