A stunning tirade highlights Israeli divide over Netanyahu

• President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP is working on a plan to stop parliamentary deputies from transferring to other parties

• Israel has been deeply divided for decades, between religious and secular Jews

JERUSALEM: He named police investigators and prosecutors. He accused them of using “Soviet style” extor- tion to turn witnesses against him. He even claimed that elderly Ho- locaust survivors were on his side, sympathizing with his plight.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long faced accusations of using his formidable oratory skills and flair for the dramatic to sow divisions between friends and foes. But his fulminating tirade against Israel’s legal system — launched in the lobby of the very courthouse where he went on trial for corruption charges — seemed to enter new territory.

Israel has been deeply divided for decades, between religious and secular Jews, between those who favored a deal with the Palestinians and those who opposed it. But Netanyahu’s blistering attack on the legitimacy of Israel’s legal system threatened to shake the very foundations of the state and has remained a topic of debate all week.

“There have always been harsh political arguments, but there was always agreement on the rules of the game,” said Dan Meridor, a former justice minister from Netanyahu’s Likud party. “The prime minister needs to model behavior. Instead, he’s taking his trial out to the street. He’s challenging the existing order and it’s very dangerous.”

Surrounded by loyal deputies and with hundreds of adoring supporters chanting outside, Netanyahu arrived at the courthouse Sunday ready for battle. Before entering the courtroom, he accused police, prosecutors, the courts and the media of an ideologically driven grand conspiracy to oust him against the will of the people. He said he was the victim of a “witch hunt” and made veiled threats against those conducting his investigations.

His months of fiery rhetoric against the institutions of the state he leads have drawn comparisons to his loaded denunciations as opposition leader 25 years ago during the charged period that preceded the assassination of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Netanyahu’s own appointed attorney general says he’s received concrete threats and the prosecutor in the case has been assigned a bodyguard.