The start of Sara Netanyahu’s trial was the latest chapter in a saga intensely scrutinised in Israel but dismissed by the Netanyahus as another “absurd” attempt to discredit them.

She smiled at her lawyers when entering the court and the session began with a hearing on whether the trial should be overseen by a panel of three judges instead of one, due to the case’s “public sensitivity”.

Attorney Yossi Cohen, leading her defence, said the prosecution request for an expanded bench was an attempt to take a simple case and “make it into a complicated drama”.

After a hearing of about around 40 minutes, the court adjourned until November 13, with the trial expected to run for months.

But judge Avital Chen hinted that he would prefer some form of plea bargain to avoid a drawn-out trial, telling the lawyers to “see if they can reach an agreement between them”.

He said the accused would not be required to appear in court at the November hearing.

On the issue of adding two more judges, he said he would inform the parties of his decision in writing.

– ‘Noodles and take-away’ –

Sara Netanyahu was charged with fraud and breach of trust in June.

POOL/AFP / Amit SHABI. Sara Netanyahu (C), wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attends a hearing at a Jerusalem court for allegedly using state funds to fraudulently pay for hundreds of meals.

On trial with her is Ezra Seidoff, who ran the Netanyahus’ official Jerusalem residence at the time of the alleged offences.

He is charged with fraud and falsifying documents.

Prosecutors accuse them of misusing state funds to pay for catered meals costing $100,000 (85,000 euros) by falsely declaring there were no cooks available at the residence.

From 2010 to 2013, Sara Netanyahu, her family and guests received “fraudulently from the state hundreds of prepared meals”, the indictment read.

According to the charge sheet, the meals were ordered from a variety of well-known Jerusalem businesses, including an Italian restaurant, a Middle Eastern grill joint and a sushi establishment.

Netanyahu, 59 and a high-profile presence at her husband’s side throughout his long tenure, has denied any wrongdoing.

“For the first time in history, charges are being pressed against a leader’s wife over noodles and take-away containers from six to seven years ago,” a statement from her lawyers said Sunday.

The meals were ordered “against Sara Netanyahu’s will”, it said.

– Allegations over luxury gifts –

The case has again turned the spotlight on the Netanyahu family and past allegations of misbehaviour.

The premier himself faces possible charges in separate corruption investigations, leading to speculation that he will eventually be forced to step down.

Sara Netanyahu has previously been accused of pocketing cash from deposit refunds for empty bottles returned from the official residence.

She has also faced accusations of mistreating staff, and in 2016 a court awarded some $47,000 in damages to a former housekeeper who accused the couple of repeated workplace abuse.

The Netanyahus have hit back, calling the allegations grossly unfair smear attempts.

One particularly high-profile example occurred in 2017, when both the premier and his wife appeared in court in their libel case against a journalist’s claim that Sara Netanyahu kicked her husband out of the car during a row.

Benjamin Netanyahu testified that the story was a “ridiculous” fabrication.

The court later awarded the Netanyahus $32,500.

But there are potentially more serious allegations facing Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Friday, police quizzed him for a 12th time as a suspect in various cases.

In one of them he allegedly tried to secure a secret deal with the publisher of Israel’s top-selling newspaper Yediot Aharonot to ensure positive coverage in return for pushing forward a law that would have limited the circulation of a rival.

Another case involves suspicions that the premier and his family received luxury gifts from wealthy individuals in exchange for financial or personal favours.

There is also an ongoing inquiry into his ties with local telecoms giant Bezeq and its largest shareholder, Shaul Elovitch, according to Israeli media.

Police have recommended Benjamin Netanyahu be indicted in two cases, though the attorney general has yet to decide whether to do so.

Despite the ongoing investigations, Netanyahu has remained strong in polls and he is not obliged to step down if formally charged.

Featured Photo: AFP / Petras Malukas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara visit a synagogue in Vilnius on August 26, 2018.

“Oslo is buried deep in its grave,” says the 45-year-old resident of Amichai, a new Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, referring to the first of the two accords signed on September 13, 1993.

“And Israelis are jumping on the earth to pack it down hard.”

Twenty-five years after the first Oslo accord offered the prospect of Israeli-Palestinian peace, Israel is governed by what is seen as its most right-wing government ever, Jewish settler numbers have soared and an end to the conflict looks remote.

When Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sealed the first Oslo agreement with a handshake on the White House lawn, there were 110,066 settlers in the West Bank and another 6,234 in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now.

AFP / THOMAS COEX. A digger is seen at a construction site in the settlement of Amichai in the occupied West Bank on September 7, 2018.

Today the Gaza settlers are gone, pulled out in a 2005 move by prime minister Ariel Sharon that fiercely divided Israeli opinion.

But there are some 600,000 settlers living among nearly three million Palestinians in the West Bank and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Key members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current coalition openly oppose a Palestinian state and have harshly criticised the Oslo accords.

– ‘Not prepared to accept’ –

In June last year, work started on Amichai in the northern West Bank, the first new government-sanctioned Jewish settlement since 1991, though existing settlements and rogue outposts have expanded greatly during that time.

Amichai is being built for about 40 families that were evicted from Amona, a community built without Israeli permits that was demolished in February 2017.

One of them is Boaran, a former Amona resident who fought against its closure then became a leader of the campaign to rehouse those evicted.

In March he and his family moved into their new home, a modest prefabricated building but with modern amenities such as a dishwasher and air conditioning.

He told AFP that the Oslo agreement galvanised Israeli public opinion against a Palestinian state on land that many Jews consider their biblical birthright.

AFP / THOMAS COEX. Houses under construction are seen in the settlement of Amichai in the occupied West Bank on September 7, 2018.

“The aim was complete withdrawal (by Jewish settlers) and to set up in the heart of the land of Israel, the heart of the Jewish homeland, an additional state…an additional Arab state,” he said.

“We are not prepared to accept a society which will turn its weapons and its national aspirations against us. We are ruling out strategically the vision of a Palestinian state.”

Netanyahu entered office as prime minister for the first time in 1996 after elections in which he was buoyed — at least in part — by a groundswell of anti-Oslo opinion among voters.

Rabin had in the meantime been assassinated in November 1995 by a Jewish extremist opposed to the accords.

Envisaged by the Oslo plan, although not stated explicitly, was a sovereign Palestinian state living peacefully alongside Israel.

– Secret back-channel –

Terje Roed-Larsen, a Norwegian academic who in 1992 headed an Oslo institute for social research, became a prime mover of a covert plan to bring together Israelis and officials of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

At the time, the PLO was listed by Israel as a terror organisation.

Roed-Larsen spoke with Yossi Beilin, who would later become Israeli deputy foreign minister, and eventually explored setting up back-channel talks with Arafat.

“We started talks with Faisal Husseini, who was the Palestinian leader in Jerusalem,” Roed-Larsen said by phone from New York, where he now heads the International Peace Institute think-tank.

“What I realised through those talks was that without the PLO and Arafat it was impossible to reach any kind of agreement because it would have been blocked by the PLO.”

It was agreed that the Norwegians should be the brokers at the sessions, which took place largely in Oslo, lending the agreement its name.

Although the Oslo process eventually ground to a halt, Roed-Larsen says it was not a failure.

“Still the two-state solution is a viable idea,” he said.

He added that without the signs of a thaw between Israel and the Palestinians, Jordan could not have signed a 1994 peace treaty with the Jewish state.

While the international community still sees two states as the preferred outcome, Israelis are evenly divided and few see any end to the conflict with the Palestinians in the near term.

An August poll by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University showed 47 percent of respondents in favour of two states and 46 percent against.

It said that 86 percent saw the chances of a peace breakthrough in the coming 12 months as “low” or “very low”.

Featured Photo: AFP/File / J. DAVID AKE. US president Bill Clinton stands between PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzahk Rabin as they shake hands on September 13, 1993 at the White House after signing the Oslo Accords.