THE GRAVEST political scandal of Mr Benjamin Netanyahu's first year in office ended yesterday with more a whimper than a bang. But the Israeli Prime Minister is already struggling in a new sea of troubles.
By a margin of 4-1, a five judge panel of the Israeli Supreme Court rejected petitions calling for Mr Netanyahu and his minister of justice, Mr Tsachi Hanegbi, to be prosecuted for fraud over January's shortlived appointment of Mr Ronnie BarOn, an anonymous activist from their Likud party, as the country's attorney general.
The existence of a dissenting opinion, combined with the fact that police investigators and some members of the state prosecution authority have always argued that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Hanegbi should be charged, led some of the appellants yesterday to claim at least a partial victory. For example, Mr Yossi Beilin, a leading member of the main opposition Labour Party, hailed what he called "the beginning of the end" of the Netanyahu government.
The prime minister's spokesmen, by contrast, professed delight at a "victory for justice", and Mr Hanegbi was welcomed as a hero, and presented with a bouquet, by his Justice Ministry officials. He called it the "happiest day" of the year.
Although the petitioners have talked about lodging an appeal for a further hearing before a larger panel of judges, Mr Hanegbi was probably right to describe the' "BarOn Affair" as being over.
Still, Mr Netanyahu can allow himself little time for celebration. Quite apart from the stagnation of Palestinian peace efforts and escalation of violence in the West Bank, he is in the midst of a minor coalition crisis with an immigrant party led by Mr Nat an Sharansky, who accuses him of breaking a series of pledges.
Far more seriously, he faces a major rift with the world Jewish community over legislation currently passing through the Knesset that would undermine the status of Reform and Conservative Judaism here. The row has already seen a reported 10 per cent fall in American Jewish philanthropy to Israel.
Mr Netanyahu is said to have cancelled a forthcoming trip to the United States in an attempt to find a compromise over the legislation that could pacify international Jewry without prompting the resignation of key Orthodox and ultraOrthodox members of his coalition.