JERUSALEM: A Zionist court on Sunday postponed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s testimony in his corruption trial after he requested a delay, as US President Donald Trump called for the case to be thrown out. “Following the explanations given... we partially accept the request and cancel at this stage Mr Netanyahu’s hearings scheduled” for this week, the Jerusalem district court said in its ruling, published online by Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Netanyahu’s lawyers had asked the court to excuse him from testifying over the next two weeks so he could focus on security issues following a ceasefire with Iran and amid ongoing fighting in Gaza where Zionist hostages are held. They had submitted Netanyahu’s schedule to the court to demonstrate “the national need for the prime minister to devote all his time and energy to the political, national and security issues at hand”.

The court initially rejected the lawyers’ request but said in its ruling on Sunday that it had changed its judgment after hearing arguments from the prime minister, the head of military intelligence and the chief of the Mossad spy agency. Trump on Saturday said in a post on his Truth Social platform that the United States was “not going to stand” for the continued prosecution, prompting Netanyahu to thank him in a message on X. Earlier in the week, the US president had described the case against the Zionist entity’s premier as a “witch hunt”, saying the trial “should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero”.

Zionist entity opposition leader Yair Lapid reacted by saying that Trump “should not interfere in a judicial trial in an independent country”. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing in the corruption affair and his supporters have described the long-running trial as politically motivated. In one of the cases, he and his wife, Sara, are accused of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewelry and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favors. 

In two others, Netanyahu is accused of attempting to negotiate more favorable coverage from two Zionist entity media outlets. The prime minister has requested multiple postponements to the trial since it began in May 2020. During his current term, which started in late 2022, Netanyahu’s government has proposed far-reaching judicial reforms that critics say were designed to weaken the courts and prompted massive protests that were only curtailed by the onset of the Gaza war.

Benjamin Netanyahu must leave office, his predecessor Naftali Bennett has told a televised interview, refusing to say whether he intends to challenge the country’s longest-serving leader in an election. In an interview with Channel 12 that aired on Saturday, former prime minister Bennett said Netanyahu “has been in power for 20 years... that’s too much, it’s not healthy”. “He bears... heavy responsibility for the divisions in (Zionist) society”, Bennett said of growing rifts within Zionist entity under Netanyahu, who has a strong support base but also staunch opponents who have demanded his departure including over his handling of the Gaza war since October 2023.

Netanyahu “must go”, said the former prime minister, a right-wing leader who in 2021 joined forces with Netanyahu critics to form a coalition that ousted him from the premiership after 12 consecutive years at the helm. But the fragile coalition government Bennett had led along with current opposition chief Yair Lapid collapsed after about a year. Snap elections ensued, and Netanyahu again assumed the premiership with backing from far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties. — AFP