Trump's Heavy-handed Request to Pardon Netanyahu Proves: Israel's PM Can Feel the Legal Noose Tightening - Israel News
Less than 24 hours after Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer resigned, U.S. President Donald Trump's letter landed on President Isaac Herzog's desk.
It's reasonable to infer that one of Dermer's final acts was related to drafting the letter. After all, what could be more "strategic" than attempting to rescue Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from his corruption trial at a time when his lies and contradictory statements are being exposed in the Tel Aviv District Court?
The Israeli fingerprints on Trump's letter are unmistakable. Note, for example, the sentence where he tells Herzog that a pardon is needed so that Netanyahu can "unite Israel." This message echoes the well-known rhetoric of "healing, mending and uniting hearts" Trump is so eager to promote unity, but, alas, Netanyahu being charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust – and becoming more entangled by the day – prevents him from doing so.
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This wasn't the only instance of humor or irony in Trump's letter. "I absolutely respect the independence of the Israeli justice system and its requirements," he wrote, only to add that he "believes the 'case' against Bibi … is a political, unjustified prosecution."
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This mirrors, word for word, Netanyahu and his allies' arguments regarding so-called fabricated cases and what they claim is an attempt to remove a right-wing prime minister from power.
This brings us to Herzog's response. It was awkward, submissive and groveling. Instead of firmly rejecting the ugly smear against Israel's judiciary, which is currently facing one of the most challenging periods in its history, Herzog bowed to Trump's "support and contribution," and so on, blah blah blah, while noting merely that "anyone seeking a presidential pardon must submit a formal request in accordance with the established procedures."
This isn't the response of the president of a sovereign state, but of a low-level clerk in the pardons department of the Justice Ministry. Herzog could learn a lesson from the way Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva firmly resisted the pressure Trump exerted on him and the Brazilian judiciary to overturn the trial of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Lula's stance expressed sovereignty; Herzog's reflects a Diaspora Jewish posture.
As for Netanyahu: Despite all the delays, maneuvers and evasions, the cross-examination is proceeding. Confronted with the mountain of evidence before the panel of judges, Netanyahu offers preposterous accounts on every matter. The cases aren't collapsing – his defense is. He hardly smokes cigars, his wife hardly drinks champagne, all the witnesses are liars, the prosecution is biased and the investigators are corrupt.
It's no surprise that, alongside the deep hole Netanyahu is digging for himself in court, he is deploying his octopus-like reach to achieve his critical goal: halting the trial. Trump's involvement is not even the central issue. It's "sexy," it creates chaos and it provides rich material for satire, but ultimately, it's meaningless.
The parallel, more consequential path Netanyahu is pursuing involves splitting the attorney general's role and appointing a "special prosecutor" to petition the court to reexamine his cases and consider delaying proceedings, based on one frivolous claim or another.
A pardon is also an option. But Netanyahu speaks of a lavish pardon, under conditions no one has ever received in Israel: without admitting guilt and without stepping back from political life.
It would be a corrupt pardon, allowing him to declare, "I'm innocent!" and launch his revenge against all Israeli law enforcement and judicial authorities (or, in Trump's words, "to unite Israel"). Everything we've witnessed so far, in almost three years of judicial overhaul will seem like child's play when Netanyahu is freed from the consequences of the law, races into another term through manipulated elections upended at its very foundations.
When Trump's heavy hand reaches into the workings of Israel's judiciary, it reads less like foreign aid and more like an appeal, even a plea, from Netanyahu, who feels the noose tightening.
Yet this unprecedented phenomenon has another dimension: a U.S. administration effectively taking ownership of Israel's security decisions, in a manner that scarcely pretends to be about so-called coordination and cooperation.
Where security decisions were once made in defense headquarters in Tel Aviv, today they're being taken in the Civil-Military Coordination Center established by the United States in Kiryat Gat. Moreover, a U.S. base will soon be built on Israel's border with Gaza. The United States decides who supplies humanitarian aid, who is allowed to send forces (Turkey and Qatar, for example), where and when the Israel Defense Forces will withdraw and what it may or may not do inside Gaza.
Israel's taste for conspiracy theories hasn't overlooked Trump's letter. "A pardon for a pardon," some say: Herzog will pardon the defendant, and the defendant will, in turn, pardon or free the 100 or 150 Hamas members held in the IDF enclave in the al-Janina neighborhood of Rafah, allowing them to emerge safely from the tunnel.
Netanyahu's base will swallow that pill, too. And if we're indulging in fantasy, why not add the release from prison of senior Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti to his plea bargain?