Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu corruption accusations

By: V-Dem Staff
Mar 14, 2018


On February 13, the Israeli police recommended Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The accusations and allegations pose a threat to his ability to remain in power. Over the year, the Israeli Prime Minister has faced several investigations, but according to him, ‘these will also end without anything’.

This week's graph explores corruption in Israel in comparison with the MENA region. V-Dem's indicator on Executive bribery and corrupt exchanges evaluates how often members of the executive grant favors in exchange to bribes and material inducements. It is measured from zero to four, in which the lowest score means briberies are expected and occur routinely, while high scores characterize a context in which it never, or hardly ever, happens.

Despite the latest news on the corruption scandals around the Prime Minister, Israel scores relatively high on the indicator. These scores indicate that exchange of favors through illegal or unethical material inducements are not routinely expected, but might happen more often than not when dealing with the executive branch. As noted, however, the average among countries within the MENA region shows lower scores on the selected indicator, presenting a striking disparity. This might lead to the perception that Israel has low levels of political corruption. Yet, corruption investigations against Israeli prime ministers go back to previous decades and are not exclusive to them, reaching ministers and parliamentarians.

If you want to learn more about corruption in Israel, or any other country, use our online analysis tools at v-dem.net.