Benjamin Netanyahu uttered only one short sentence at the opening session of his trial in Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon.

“Defendant number one,” as he is referred to, stood up and confirmed, “I have read the charge-sheet and understand its contents.”

Aside from that piece of protocol, he remained silent throughout the 50 minutes. He sat alone on the defendants’ bench, with the other three accused sitting separately behind him, everyone in protective masks.

Most of the time he sat still, looking straight ahead at the presiding judge, Rivka Friedman-Feldman. Occasionally, he couldn’t help himself but glance sideways at his tormentor — Liat Ben-Ari, the deputy state prosecutor, who built the case against him over the past three years and will now be his lead prosecutor in court.

In the third-floor corridor, before going in to courtroom 317, he was still Israel’s prime minister. Flanked by his Shin Bet bodyguards and Likud ministers, he gave an angry 15-minute speech accusing the entire legal establishment of concocting “tainted and fabricated” charges against him.

Someone had even placed a wooden podium outside the court building bearing the official seal of the State of Israel. But once he crossed the threshold, he was no longer in charge. His lawyers made a big show of calling him “the prime minister”, but Judge Friedman-Feldman, who referred to him only once, made it clear that in her courtroom he was simply “Mr Netanyahu”.

The Netanyahu case is set to last at least a couple of years. There are three cases which have been rolled into one, hundreds of witnesses to call and thousands of pieces of evidence to present. And of course the defendants will use every delaying tactic in the book. That book is particularly thick when one of the defendants is the prime minister. And while, inside the courtroom, Mr Netanyahu and the owners of two of Israel’s largest media companies will be on trial, outside the prime minister will be using all the considerable powers and platforms he has to put the Israeli legal system and the media on trial.

Most of the cases which had been due to be heard on Sunday at the district court had to be delayed. The building and its surroundings were under lockdown.

The Netanyahu case will likely need hundreds of sessions and the court cannot be shut down for each of them. Mr Netanyahu fought to prevent the trial and the previous justice minister, his loyalist Amir Ohana, even signed emergency orders temporarily shutting down the courts due to Covid-19, postponing the opening session by over two months.

The next session is scheduled for July 17 and will be reserved for preliminary arguments. The judges have already said that the defendants don’t have to attend. But at some point in six months or so, when the evidentiary stage of the trial begins and sessions take place at least three times a week, the defendants will have to be there. Paralysing the district court for months is out of the question. The next battle outside the trail will be over holding it at an alternative site.

Israel’s legal system has been capable in the past of holding the most powerful in the land to account. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went to prison for bribe-taking and former President Moshe Katzav was jailed for rape. But neither, despite protesting their innocence, challenged the system or questioned its right to hold them accountable. Mr Netanyahu, however, both through his rhetoric and his popularity, has tapped in to a pre-existing frustration with the judiciary on the right-wing and is now undermining its powers to put a prime minister on trial.

An alternative courtroom which can hold the Netanyahu trial can be found. The question is whether the Israel justice system can cope.