Netanyahu's Base Remains Loyal Despite Possible Charges
GORANI: Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been told he will be indicted on bribery and breach of trust charges. His opponents are calling on him to step aside. But his base remains fiercely loyal as ever. CNN's Melissa Bell reports.</s>MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): His late arrival did nothing to dampen his supporters' enthusiasm. With a month to go till the election, Benjamin Netanyahu may have slipped to second place in the polls nationally, but this is Likud country.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bibi! Bibi! Bibi!</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bibi! Bibi! Bibi!</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bibi! Bibi! Bibi!</s>BELL: In 2015, the party won nearly 40 percent of the vote here in the southern Israeli town of Be'er Sheva. And a week after the attorney general recommended indicting Netanyahu in three separate corruption investigations, most of those we spoke to think he'll win his fifth term regardless.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They said that we want Bibi in at</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's his charisma and the way he speaks all over the world.</s>BELL (on camera): Who do you vote for?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like Bibi.</s>BELL (voice-over): Our guide through Be'er Sheva is Uriel Gor Adam (ph), a local radio journalist.</s>URIEL GOR ADAM (PH), RADIO JOURNALIST: A lot of people which are not living in the center of Israel, mainly Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, have found a place and found someone who would speak their anger, who would speak their misery.</s>BELL (on camera): Hello, how are you. (voice-over): Inside the local Likud headquarters, the pile of signs was waist high, we're told, depleted by activists who came unprompted this year to get involved. They read, "Davka Netanyahu," encouraging his vote, not just in spite of his legal troubles, but because of them. A message not only aimed at voters but also at the media, who Netanyahu accuses of leading a left-wing conspiracy against him.</s>GOR ADAM (ph): You cover the indictment. You cover the whole - - police investigations. And they said, "OK, in spite of that --"</s>BELL (on camera): So what the signs say is pay attention to what he's being accused of and get out and vote, because he's under attack?</s>GOR ADAM (ph): And do remember, we've mentioned it earlier, people do give the benefit of the doubt.</s>BELL (voice-over): Shimon Boker, who is both the town's deputy mayor and local Likud Party chairman, agrees that, far from being put off by Netanyahu's troubles, Likud voters have been fired up by them.</s>BOKER: Translator: I want to tell you something. He's the Moses of our time. This is the Moses of Israel. The more they torture him, the stronger he'll become. That's written in the Bible. The more they torture him, the stronger he'll become.</s>BELL: And yet even here in Be'er Sheva, Netanyahu spoke in an auditorium that was only half full. To those that did turn up, however, their leader left them as impressed as ever and convinced that his natural ability to connect with his faithful would see him through once again. Melissa Bell, CNN, Be'er Sheva.</s>GORANI: More to come, including not a women's issue, but a human one. Thousands of people across the world stand together for gender equality. We'll be right back.