ABSTRACT
Lately, Israel has faced corruption scandals at the highest level of political power. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is one of the longest-time serving prime ministers in the history of established democracies, and he is a prominent leader in the global arena. His affairs and the public’s reactions to his alleged scandals allow us to learn about the nature of politics and corruption not only in Israel but also in a representative parliamentary democracy that is supposed to have less corruption compared to less democratic states.
This chapter focuses on the question of how Benjamin Netanyahu can be in office for so long despite the fact that he has been engaged, directly or indirectly, in what appears to be corruption scandals. We argue that the centrality of corruption in public discourse and the gap between the perceptions of the media, the legal system, and many citizens who support Netanyahu are part of a new phase in the political system that we call here “neoliberal populism”. Our empirical analysis includes print and online press sources, public surveys made between December 2016 and July 2018, as well as in‐depth, semi-structured interviews with Israeli politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, and lawyers active in the field of anti-corruption or white-collar crime.
