Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is forced to spend hours each week in court in a years-long trial for charges that have been unraveling one by one.

This week, he is providing testimony regarding the charges in Case 4000, which claims that Walla provided favorable coverage to Netanyahu in exchange for favors. The charges have been completely disproven in court time and time again.

Channel 12 journalist Amit Segal provided a glimpse of the absurdity of the cross-examination in court on Tuesday, during which Netanyahu was questioned for hours about a Facebook post published by Walla in 2015 about his family dog Kaya (who died in 2018).

Segal published a photo of the post and wrote, “This is the issue on which the Prime Minister has been questioned in recent hours.”

Judge Oded Shaham remarks to prosecutor Yehudit Tirosh: “The cross-examination is helping us very little to move forward. This is not an effective cross-examination.”

Netanyahu: “Given the existing absurdity, I’m surprised they didn’t bring Kaya as a state witness.”

This is not the first time that one of the judges has exploded over the prosecutors spending hours cross-examining Netanyahu on petty details in Case 4000. Earlier this month, judge Moshe Bar-Am slammed Tirosh after she repeatedly asked Netanyahu whether he had requested that articles on the Walla news site be removed or promoted during election periods.

Bar-Am exploded: “We’ve exhausted this issue! I swear, let’s move on. I swear, we can’t continue like this!”

Previously, Israeli taxpayers funded hours of cross-examination about a Bugs Bunny doll gifted to Netanyahu’s son, Yair, as a child.

It should be noted that the defense not only proved that Walla did not provide favorable coverage to Netanyahu, but a retired police investigator admitted last month that the police did not even investigate “irregular responsiveness”—one of the charges in the indictment—and he “doesn’t even know what the term means!”

Channel 14 journalist Yinon Magal provided a transcript of parts of Habkin’s testimony, entitled “The Comedy Of The Netanyahu Trial.”

Investigator Habkin admits: “We didn’t investigate ‘irregular responsiveness’—I don’t even know what that is.”

Netanyahu’s lawyer. Adv. Amit Hadad: Confirm for me that the basis of the case was that Netanyahu received favorable coverage from the Walla news site.

Habkin: Yes, we investigated favorable coverage.

Hadad: Only favorable coverage?

Habkin: Yes.

Hadad: And did you investigate “irregular responsiveness”?

Habkin: What is ‘irregular responsiveness’?

Hadad: You never investigated irregular responsiveness?

Habkin: I don’t know what that is. Irregular responsiveness has to be measured against something.

Hadad: Confirm for me that you never investigated and never attempted to establish a basis of comparison—not against other channels, not against other politicians?

Habkin: Never.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)