The State of Israel is currently embroiled in several high-profile internal legal issues. Sarah Ben-Nun, legal correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, broke it down in her discussion with Tamar Uriel-Beeri on The Jerusalem Post Podcast.
"The big things [are] the Netanyahu trial and Qatargate investigation," Ben-Nun said.
Both topics concern issues related to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and have dominated headlines for weeks.
Prime minister on trial: What is the status of the case against Netanyahu?
The Netanyahu trial sees the prime minister being put on trial for a number of cases relating to fraud, bribery, and breach of trust.
"We are still in the testimonies of case 4000," Ben-Nun noted, referring to the media bribery case dubbed by some as the Bezeq-Walla affair.
According to these charges, Netanyahu, who was also communications minister at the time of the alleged offense, is accused of promising to advance regulations that would favor Shaul Elovitch, an Israeli businessman who at the time owned the major communications company Bezeq. In exchange for promoting Elovitch's business interests, his news site Walla would to have changed their coverage of Netanyahu to be more positive.
Though he was indicted on November 21, 2019, the prime minister only recently began giving his testimony in December 2024.
"When his testimony began, he said 'I've been waiting eight years for this, to tell my side of the story,'" Ben-Nun explained. "His defense team is just going through all of these items. Because it's so many items, the judges actually requested that his team condense them into clusters.
Currently, the trial is going through the correspondence between Netanyahu and figures related to Walla, with the prime minister continuing to deny all knowledge of these claims.
Qatargate: When Doha's funds reach the Prime Minister's Office
The Qatargate scandal concerns the influence of the Qatari government in Israel, specifically the allegation that members of Netanyahu's staff have been acting as Qatari proxies.
"If we're going to start this, we have to start it around 2019," Ben-Nun said, referring to when investigative journalists reported that Netanyahu authorized the transfer of Qatari funds to the Israeli government - which the government denied - and the transfer of Qatari funds directly to Hamas.
These allegations clouded Qatar's involvement in the hostage deal negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
In 2024, Netanyahu's adviser Eli Feldstein allegedly leaked documents about this to the German daily newspaper Bild, which reverberated on public opinion regarding the hostage deal talks, which precipitated investigations that revealed a much wider possible connection between Doha and staffers in the Prime Minister's Office.
"And as the months go by, more and more comes out about the connections between other figures in the Prime Minister's Office and Qatari officials," Ben-Nun said.
As reports continued to come out, suspicion was placed on Feldstein, Netanyahu spokesperson and media adviser Yonatan Urich, and another adviser Srulik Einhorn, the latter of whom resides in Serbia.
Then further reports continued to emerge as gag orders on the press were lifted. This included allegations against businessmen Jay Footlick and Gil Birger. All of these individuals were accused of somehow being involved in the transfer of funds from Doha for the express purpose of promoting Qatari interests.
"The goal was to boost Qatar's image in the public eye," Ben-Nun said, later noting that the Qatargate scandal is continuing to develop every day, and the entire situation will change as more news comes out about it.