Herzog slams PM over graft probes: Hand in your keys and quit

Opposition MKs called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign Wednesday and harshly condemned him for refusing to answer questions about the ongoing police investigations into him.

Isaac Herzog, head of the opposition and the Zionist Union faction, attacked Netanyahu in the wake of a stormy Knesset question and answer session, insisting that Netanyahu call new elections.

“This government must go home and return the mandate to the electorate,” Herzog told the Knesset.

“That is what Netanyahu told the Olmert government [to do],” he said, quoting Netanyahu’s 2008 statement that then-prime minister Ehud Olmert could no longer serve as premier due to graft investigations against him. Olmert later stepped down, before being indicted, and is now serving jail time for corruption.

Addressing Netanyahu directly, Herzog said the greatest gift the prime minister could give the Israeli people would be “turn in your keys and resign.”

Facing questions from MKs, Netanyahu rejected all specific queries about ongoing police investigations into his alleged misconduct, calling them an endless “witch hunt.”

Herzog hit back, saying that the prime minister was up to his neck in investigations and could not be objective. “You cannot make decisions with a level head,” he said.

When asked directly by MK Tamar Zandberg from Meretz, Netanyahu declined to answer whether he will resign if indicted in one of the criminal investigations currently opened against him.

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein stepped in, saying that the prime minister did not have to answer questions that do not relate to government activities.

Zandberg later expressed her frustration at Netanyahu’s evasive answers on Facebook.

“The prime minister appeared today for what should have been an hour of questions from MKs. He came and refused to answer any questions about the investigations against him, the chances of indictment and the corruption,” she wrote. “He succeeded in doing this with the help of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, who falsely claimed that these questions contradict regulations.”

Netanyahu was speaking during the new Question Time procedure introduced last year by which opposition MKs can choose 10 ministers, including the prime minister, to answer questions once during the legislative year.

But during the hour-and-a-half long grilling, he repeatedly refused to answer questions on the investigations.

The prime minister is being investigated in two separate cases. The first, known as “Case 1000,” is looking into claims that he and his family received luxury gifts worth hundreds of thousands of shekels from businessmen, among them Israeli movie producer Arnon Milchan.

A second probe, known as “Case 2000,” pertains to recordings of conversations between Netanyahu and Israeli newspaper publisher Arnon “Noni” Mozes, in which the pair allegedly negotiated an illicit quid pro quo deal that would have seen the prime minister pass legislation to hamper a rival daily in return for more favorable coverage from Mozes’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

Police are also looking into the so-called submarine scandal, in which Netanyahu’s personal lawyer David Shimron allegedly swayed multi-billion shekel deals in favor of the German shipbuilder he represented in Israel. Channel 2 television reported Tuesday that former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon was questioned by police as part of their initial investigation.