Netanyahu Asks Herzog for a Pardon Without Admitting Guilt

Israel’s politics erupted on Sunday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked President Isaac Herzog for a pardon. In a signed one-page letter, Netanyahu neither admitted wrongdoing nor apologised for any alleged offence, instead invoking what he called his “broad public and ethical responsibility” for the political tensions surrounding his corruption trial.

The application ran to 111 pages: the letter signed by Netanyahu, and a second, more detailed submission signed by his lawyer, Amit Hadad. It asked Herzog to bring the trial to an end, arguing that the proceedings hampered the prime minister’s ability to lead and that closing them served the public interest. “In recent years, tensions and disputes have increased between different segments of the nation and between the various branches of the state,” Netanyahu wrote. “I am aware that the proceedings being conducted in my case have become a focal point for confrontations.” Facing charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery, he said that despite a personal wish to continue the trial and prove his innocence, “closing down the trial will lower the flames of political disagreement” at a moment of security challenges and diplomatic opportunity.

How an Israeli presidential pardon works, and why this one is unusual

The Israeli president’s power of clemency is broad and subject to little oversight, but the convention around it is narrow. As a rule the president considers a pardon request only after all legal proceedings have ended, and pardons granted before conviction are rare and exceptional, PBS NewsHour reported. A pardon also cannot by itself stop a trial: only the attorney general can halt proceedings. Procedurally the request goes first to the Justice Ministry’s pardons department, which gathers professional opinions from the relevant authorities; those are passed to the president’s legal adviser, who prepares a further recommendation before Herzog decides, The Times of Israel reported. No admission of guilt is technically required.

The three cases

Netanyahu faces charges of fraud, accepting bribes and breach of trust arising from three separate police investigations, and denies all wrongdoing. In the case known as the Bezeq affair, he is accused of granting regulatory benefits to the telecommunications company Bezeq while serving as communications minister, in return for favourable coverage on the Walla news site from Bezeq’s majority shareholder, Shaul Elovitch, who owned it. In the Yediot affair, he is accused of advancing newspaper distribution regulations that favoured the publisher of Yediot Aharonot, Arnon Mozes, in exchange for friendlier coverage. In the gifts affair, widely regarded as the most serious, Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are accused of accepting $200,000 in gifts from the Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan in return for help with a United States visa and tax changes that benefited him.

The reaction, along familiar lines

Senior figures in Netanyahu’s government backed the request. Defence Minister Israel Katz called it essential to national security, saying Israel faced a more complex security reality than ever before. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Netanyahu had been “persecuted for years by a corrupt judicial system that fabricated political cases against him”, and said his Religious Zionism party would keep pressing for judicial overhaul regardless of the outcome.

The opposition took the opposite view. Opposition Leader Yair Lapid appealed publicly to Herzog, arguing that a pardon without an admission of guilt or a complete withdrawal from political life would undermine the rule of law: “The president cannot pardon Netanyahu without accountability.” Yair Golan, chairman of the Democrats party, called the request a plain evasion of responsibility, said “only the guilty seek a pardon” and urged Netanyahu to leave public life. Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beytenu accused him of distracting from the economy, military operations and the dispute over conscription of ultra-Orthodox men. The Movement for Quality Government warned that a pardon granted mid-trial would be “a deadly blow to the rule of law and to the principle of equality before the law”.

The letter from Washington

The request followed an unusual intervention. United States President Donald Trump had written to Herzog urging clemency for Netanyahu; Herzog replied that no pardon could be considered unless Netanyahu first formally admitted guilt and asked for clemency himself. Netanyahu had previously ruled out seeking clemency if it meant admitting guilt, and his application contained no such admission. Jewish Insider reported that Trump’s letter described the prosecution as political and unjustified, and that Herzog’s office called it an extraordinary request carrying significant implications, which the president would consider responsibly once he had all the relevant opinions.

The comparison Israelis reach for is Ehud Olmert, who stepped down as prime minister in 2008 ahead of his own corruption indictment. Olmert was eventually convicted and served two-thirds of a 27-month prison sentence.

What is still unclear

Neither Netanyahu’s letter nor the surrounding statements set out what he would do if the pardon were granted: he did not offer to leave office or politics. There was no timetable for a decision, and no indication of what position the attorney general (the only official who can actually stop the trial) would take. The application also did not address what a pardon would mean for the co-defendants in the same cases.