Jerusalem • Israel’s attorney general on Thursday recommended criminal charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a series of corruption cases, shaking up an already tumultuous election campaign and threatening to end the Israeli leader’s decades-long political career.
The potential charges stretch across an array of embarrassing scandals that have painted Netanyahu as a hedonistic, and sometimes petty, leader with a taste for expensive gifts and an obsession over his public image. They include allegations he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of champagne and cigars from billionaire friends, and allegedly used his influence to help a wealthy telecom magnate in exchange for favorable coverage on a popular news site.