On July 20, 2019, Benjamin Netanyahu became Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, surpassing the country’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion. By any measure, this was a monumental feat, though Netanyahu wasn’t in the mood to celebrate. He had a September election to focus on, having been thwarted in his efforts to form a government five months earlier by his old friend Avigdor Lieberman. He also had a set of corruption indictments hanging over his head like a sword of Damocles.

Those indictments have now been filed, closing the first chapter on a three-year process that has implicated family members and colleagues, and exposed incestuous complicity between Israel’s politicians and its press. Netanyahu is charged in three cases that span decades, incriminating him at various points of his political career. Two involve him colluding with Israeli news outlets, promising to either damage their rivals or pay them millions of shekels in return for more favorable coverage. The other is more prosaic: it is alleged that Netanyahu intervened to extend the US visa of Arnon Milchan, an Israeli billionaire, and perform a similar, unnamed favor for the Australian billionaire James Packer. And for these crimes, for which he might serve time in Maasiyahu Prison, Netanyahu received champagne, cigars, and $3,000 worth of jewelry for his wife, Sara.

Despite his arraignment, Netanyahu remains the prime minister, and in March will be allowed to lead Likud into its third election in the span of a year, having overcome a leadership challenge in late December. Talk that he might accept a plea deal was quashed by the announcement that he is seeking parliamentary immunity, which will likely delay his trial until after the election. Most Israeli pundits think he will lose the election to his rival, media-friendly security pervert Benny Gantz. But you’d be foolish to count on it — Netanyahu has the survival skills of a barnacle. And besides, like Donald Trump, he has cultivated the undying loyalty of a significant portion of his base, who interpret his indictment as the work of a malign deep state hell-bent on sacrificing Israel to the Arabs.