It has been almost two years now that Israeli police investigators have been searching — at first secretly, then intensively — for the other side of the bribery equation involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s associate, Israeli-American billionaire Arnon Milchan, willingly provided the police who are working File 1000 with the details of the benefits of the $100,000 that he had in recent years showered on Netanyahu and his wife, Sara. The missing piece of the puzzle was the answer to one question: Did Milchan serve to gain anything from his generosity?

As long as nothing was known about what, if any, benefits Milchan received in exchange for what he provided, the suspicions against Netanyahu remained the relatively mild violations of fraud and breach of trust. The prevailing assessment was that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit would be hard put to generate an impeachment process against an incumbent prime minister over an indictment for breach of trust or fraud, but when it comes to bribery, that is a different story altogether. At the end of August, the police appeared to be coming close to a milestone.

It turns out that Milchan, an international movie mogul who divides his time between Los Angeles and Israel, has been questioned under caution on several occasions at the Israeli Embassy in London. The police have prima facie evidence according to which Netanyahu used all his weight to convince British Jewish billionaire Len Blavatnik to acquire shares in Israeli Channel 10. A significant portion of those shares were held by Milchan in an investment gone bad, in which he stood to lose tens of millions of dollars. When Blavatnik acceded to Netanyahu’s request and acquired the channel, which he still controls, it redeemed Milchan's failed investment. The acquisition by Blavatnik was worth a fortune to Milchan.

Now that the police investigation rests on this factual base, it is likely that a serious indictment will be filed against the prime minister in the near future. Of note, the decision regarding an indictment is not made by the police, but by the attorney general. It must be emphasized that Blavatnik is not under suspicion for anything. He legally acquired the commercial television channel, period.