Israel’s former Attorney General Dr. Avichai Mandelblit acknowledged Thursday, during his fifth day of testimony in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial at the Jerusalem District Court, that some of the suspicions investigated against Netanyahu wouldn’t necessarily have led to similar proceedings against an ordinary citizen. The admission came after Netanyahu’s attorney, Amit Hadad, presented statements attributed to Mandelblit in an article by journalist Dana Weiss, questioning why investigations were conducted against Netanyahu even before a “reasonable suspicion” justifying a criminal investigation had formed.
4+During the hearing, Hadad presented an excerpt from Weiss’s article describing various matters that reached law enforcement for review, which stated explicitly: “These are things that seem borderline—if we weren’t talking about the prime minister, maybe we wouldn’t be doing these things.” Hadad asked Mandelblit whether this accurately reflected his position. Mandelblit replied that he wasn’t sure those were his exact words, but confirmed the spirit of the statement.
Mandelblit explained at length that there’s a clear distinction between a preliminary examination and opening a full criminal investigation. According to him, when dealing with an ordinary citizen, authorities don’t open a criminal investigation unless the evidence reaches the precise threshold of reasonable suspicion.
4+However, he argued that when it comes to public officials and those holding sensitive, senior positions, there may be a public and systemic need for a preliminary examination—even when reasonable suspicion hasn’t yet formed—to thoroughly investigate the allegations and not leave an unnecessary cloud hanging over their heads. Mandelblit stressed that a central purpose of such an examination could actually be to refute the suspicions rather than necessarily substantiate them.
When Hadad asked whether the practical meaning was that at that time there indeed wasn’t reasonable suspicion justifying opening a full investigation, Mandelblit responded unequivocally with the exact quote: “Correct, there is suspicion, not reasonable suspicion.”
4+Following this admission, attorney Hadad argued sharply that conducting detailed, intrusive investigations into the prime minister in situations where another person wouldn’t be investigated under the same circumstances constitutes prohibited discrimination. Hadad further challenged the gap between defining these actions as an “examination” versus the operations actually carried out in the field, which, according to the defense, included investigative actions in every sense without meeting the threshold conditions required by law.
Mandelblit completely rejected the implication of the discrimination claim and explained that there’s clear legal and public justification for investigating suspicions concerning high-level public officials, even when there isn’t yet full evidentiary basis for opening a criminal investigation. According to his approach, this distinction is meant to allow law enforcement to carefully examine the information, refute unfounded allegations, or alternatively continue the process if new evidence emerges that justifies it.
4+Later, Mandelblit was asked again about the exact status of suspicions in Case 1000 in July 2016, and clarified once more that at that time there were indeed certain suspicions, but they still hadn’t crossed the threshold that, in his view, justified a full investigation against Netanyahu.
The central significance of this exchange about the threshold of “suspicion versus reasonable suspicion” is the exposure of an allegedly dual enforcement policy applied to senior public officials: Mandelblit defends the very existence of examinations in a state of “mere suspicion,” without full reasonable suspicion, arguing it’s a necessary tool for protecting public integrity and clearing the name of a public official under a cloud.
4+The defense, on the other hand, seizes on this very admission to prove its claim of discrimination and selective enforcement—namely, that if sensitive investigations were opened against the prime minister under conditions where an ordinary citizen wouldn’t be investigated at all, this constitutes a deviation from the equal legal standard, reinforcing the claim that exceptional tools were used in the earliest stages of the system.