Netanyahu submits formal pardon request amid years-long corruption trial
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday submitted a formal pardon request to the country’s president, in a bid to have several corruption charges against him officially dropped. While a preconviction pardon in Israel is possible under the law, one think tank described the move as “rare and exceptional.”
Netanyahu submits formal pardon request
On Sunday, Netanyahu’s lawyer, Amit Hadad, submitted a 111-page document to Israeli President Isaac Herzog, outlining his client’s request for clemency. Netanyahu also attached a letter addressed to the president.
Alongside the formal request, Netanyahu issued a video statement in which he maintained his innocence and accused the opposition of maliciously fabricating the charges against him.
Netanyahu was indicted in 2019. In three separate cases, he is facing one count of bribery, as well as three counts of fraud and three counts of breach of trust. Despite being indicted six years ago, his criminal proceedings have been routinely hampered by extenuating circumstances, including the COVID-19 pandemic and Israel’s war against Hamas.
Netanyahu has also sat at the helm of Israeli power for nearly all of those six years, with the exception of a period from mid-2021 to 2022.
Now, as Israel’s war in Gaza enters the second month of a ceasefire, the prime minister is arguing that the ongoing case against him is impeding his ability to unify the country and move forward.
“Granting this request will allow the prime minister to devote all of his time, abilities, and energy to advancing Israel in these critical times, and to dealing with the challenges and opportunities that lie before it,” Netanyahu’s lawyer wrote in the request. “In addition, granting the request will help mend rifts between different segments of the public, and open the door to lowering the flames of tensions, all for the purpose of strengthening the country’s national resilience.”
Granting a preconviction pardon
In an article published Nov. 19, the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) explained that while Israeli law allows for a president to grant a pardon while someone is in the midst of a trial, doing so before the end of criminal proceedings or a formal conviction is “rare and exceptional.” Likewise, a pardon request does not require an admission of guilt.
“The general rule is that the President pardons those who have been convicted, or in the language of the law, ‘offenders,’” the IDI wrote. “The possibility that the President might pardon someone before or during trial risks turning the President into an authority that bypasses the law-enforcement and judicial system. The rule is that the President acts as a ‘compassionate authority’ only after all other authorities have spoken.”
Herzog’s office said in a statement that it was “aware that this is an extraordinary request, which carries with it significant implications,” adding, “After receiving all of the relevant opinions, the president will responsibly and sincerely consider the request.”
Netanyahu makes his case
During his video address Sunday, Netanyahu said that “serious crimes” were committed by those who built the case against him. He didn’t provide evidence of their alleged wrongdoing.
He also said that court hearings requiring him to testify three times a week are significantly hampering his ability to lead the country, and argued that “The security and diplomatic reality — the national interest — demand otherwise.”
Netanyahu acknowledged the “enormous challenges” Israel is facing, and said that the moment necessitates “national unity.”
The trial, he said, “tears us apart from within. It stirs divisions and deepens rifts. I am certain, as are many others in the nation, that an immediate end to the trial would greatly help lower the flames and promote broad reconciliation — something our country desperately needs.”
Netanyahu also invoked U.S. President Donald Trump, who two weeks ago wrote a letter to Herzog urging him to pardon his prime ministerial counterpart, after first floating the idea during a speech to Israel’s legislative body, the Knesset, in October.
“As the Great State of Israel and the amazing Jewish People move past the terribly difficult times of the last three years, I hereby call on you to fully pardon Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been a formidable and decisive War Time Prime Minister, and is now leading Israel into a time of peace,” Trump wrote to Herzog on Nov. 12. “While I absolutely respect the independence of the Israeli Justice System, and its requirements, I believe that this ‘case’ against Bibi…is a political, unjustified prosecution.”
Israeli politicians react to the pardon
Reaction to the news of Netanyahu’s pardon request has largely fallen along party lines.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that if Herzog is to pardon Netanyahu, the prime minister should be required to admit guilt, express remorse and immediately retire from public life.
Left-wing leader Yair Golan took a more forceful stance, saying, “The only path to unity in the nation is by stopping the machine of hatred and poison, by halting the dismantling of the legal and democratic systems. And this path begins with your resignation and leaving public life in Israel.”
The Movement for Quality Government, an Israeli nonprofit, described a preemptive pardon as a “deadly blow to the rule of law and to the principle of equality before the law, the very soul of Israeli democracy.”
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s far-right allies have stood by him. Defense Minister Israel Katz said the charges against the prime minister were “born in sin,” while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich argued that “it is clear to any reasonable person that Netanyahu has been persecuted for years by a corrupt judicial system that fabricated political cases against him.”
However, there was one Netanyahu ally who cautioned against a pardon, arguing that it would undermine his case for political persecution. Knesset member and representative of the ruling Likud party, Tally Gotliv, addressed the prime minister directly, saying, the trial is “bigger than you and all of us.” Gotliv added, “You have demonstrated the persecution against you and the right in ways that cannot be described. Only in recent weeks has the full extent of the persecution and lies been revealed in all their horror.”
It’s unclear what the timeline for reviewing Netanyahu’s pardon request will be. Herzog said the process will be long, with the Justice Ministry Pardons Department adding that it will “gather the opinions of all the relevant authorities in the ministry,” before handing them off to presidential legal advisers.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
