00:00Israeli President Isaac Herzog says he will only consider what's in Israel's best interests in
00:05response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's request for a pardon on corruption charges.
00:11Netanyahu submitted the 111-page request on Sunday, weeks after Donald Trump wrote to
00:17Israeli President Isaac Herzog to ask him to pardon the Prime Minister. Opposition politicians
00:23have criticised the move, some arguing that any pardon should be conditional on the 76-year-old
00:29retiring from politics and admitting guilt. Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust
00:35and accepting bribes in three separate but interlocking cases. The Prime Minister denies
00:40any wrongdoing and describes the trial as a witch hunt orchestrated by the media, police and judiciary.
00:47Well, for more on this story, we're joined by Yossi Mekkelberg, who's a senior consulting fellow
00:52with the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House. Thank you very much for being
00:56with us on France 24.
00:59Let's start then by giving us a better idea of how this request by Netanyahu is unprecedented. I mean,
01:07there's only one case where a presidential pardon has been granted in Israel before somebody's been
01:13convicted, right?
01:15Good afternoon. This is a very unusual request, even before there is a conviction. Because usually,
01:22if one, A, thinks they are innocent, in the case of Netanyahu, they probably will fight all the way in court to prove their innocence, unless they think otherwise, they don't stand a good chance to prove it. There was one case, and it was involved of killing two Palestinians that hijacked a bus. But even in this case, by the way, the pardon, by the father of the current president,
01:51they had to leave their position, they had to retire. And this is not what is offered right now. This doesn't even feel like asking for pardon. It's basically a request to stop a legal proceeding in the middle of it, while the prime minister himself still giving evidence in that. And it's a call, basically, to abandon altogether the case and threatening the country that this is not going to happen.
02:19If this is not going to happen, then he will keep driving wedge between different communities within the country.
02:26Because as he justified requesting this pardon, Netanyahu said he'd like to prove his innocence in court, but he said that pardoning him would heal the divisions within Israeli society. Do you agree with that?
02:38Well, he's the number one person that caused the division within the Israeli society.
02:48Him and the people around him are spreading the toxicity for years no end. They are the ones that attack the judiciary.
02:56They are the ones that accuse everyone that criticizes, legitimately criticizes them, in betraying the country in treason.
03:07And now we basically say, I want to heal it, but there is only one condition. The condition, keep me as the prime minister.
03:14Pardon me, and make sure that I'm just stopping the corruption case that is going now for six years.
03:24Is there, again, the number one person who keeps delaying and postponing, giving evidence in court and delaying this court case coming to a conclusion?
03:36This is very cynical. This is very manipulative. And bear in mind, one of the reasons for that, one is the corruption trial, but he also tried to stop a state inquest into the disastrous events in October 7th of 2023.
03:53And opposition, some on the opposition have said that there should be conditions to a pardon.
03:58For example, Netanyahu should admit guilt and step down from politics.
04:04What's the likelihood of this taking shape as a kind of deal between the president and prime minister?
04:10That's exactly the point. First, that he has to be pardoned even without conviction, without actually admitting guilt and said, enough if enough,
04:20this is the longest serving prime minister in the country's history, that under his watch happened the worst day in Israel's history, that the divisions are deeper than ever.
04:33So the idea that he can actually continue to be prime minister while just stopping corruption case is completely unacceptable.
04:42Now, I think the challenge is with the president. Yes, it is between a rock and a hard place. If he agrees to what Netanyahu says, it will probably compromise Israel's liberal democracy.
04:57It will compromise the independence of the judiciary. If he rejects it, yes, the toxic machine of Netanyahu is a psychopath, will be on full run against him.
05:09But in this case, it needs to do the right thing. And the right thing will be to reject it and either continue the court case, or if he wants an exceptional pardon, it's on the condition that he lives political life and admits guilt.
05:27A presidential pardon for Netanyahu is something that Donald Trump has called for. Do you think that he can have an impact in this case?
05:35You can have a political impact. The president of the United States, with all due respect, has no legal standing in the Israel's legal system.
05:46It's a brazen intervention in the legal affairs of another country. Not that we know it's beyond President Trump to intervene in the political and legal affairs of another country.
05:59But again, he should have never raised this in the Knesset as he did or sent the letter to this effect.
06:09He has, you know, with all due respect and what President Herzog replied to him, there is a process in Israel and justice is done in Israel through the justice system in Israel, not the president of the United States going to impose what's the result of a corruption trial.
06:27And we know that elections are due by the end of next year in Israel.
06:33Do you think that this is some kind of strategy by Netanyahu going into those votes? And how popular is the prime minister? Can he win in the next elections as well?
06:45Most definitely it has to do also with the election. Election between now and October will take place.
06:52But he doesn't want to run for another term while he's still embroiled in the corruption trial.
07:03The decent thing was to keep going with the trial and end it before the election.
07:09And if he's convicted, he will have to leave office anyway or leave even before.
07:15So this is this is the aim of all of it. But this issue, as long as Netanyahu is is in power, this will continue to haunt him because this is a serious corruption, corruption charges.
07:28So he is very strong with his base. We see that this party still probably will end as the as the as the as the biggest, the biggest party in parliament.
07:39But at the same time, the parties that comprise now the coalition won't have enough seats to form the next the next government.
07:50And Israel needs urgently election also to go over this government in the attack of of the Democratic foundations, but also the war in Gaza and what happened in the last two years.
08:03All right. Yossi Mecklberg from Chatham House. Thank you very much for your analysis. We'll have to leave it there.
Be the first to comment