The architecture of a modern democracy is usually designed with a few load-bearing walls intended to prevent the whole structure from collapsing into a authoritarian heap. One of those walls is the novel concept that the person running the country is subject to the same penal code as the person sweeping the floor. But in the grand, unending soap opera of Israeli politics, Benjamin Netanyahu has decided that load-bearing walls are merely suggestions, architectural inconveniences that impede his view of absolute power. In a move that manages to be both shocking and entirely predictable to anyone who has watched the last decade of Jerusalem maneuvering, the Prime Minister has formally asked President Isaac Herzog for a pardon. He is not asking for forgiveness after a conviction. He is asking for the referee to blow the whistle and end the game because he is tired of losing on points.
This extraordinary gambit seeks to short-circuit a corruption trial that has dragged on longer than most Hollywood franchises. The charges are not minor clerical errors. We are talking about bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. We are talking about cases tied to three separate indictments that involve trading regulatory favors for positive media coverage and accepting gifts of pink champagne and cigars that cost more than the average citizen’s monthly rent. For years, we have watched the slow, grinding procedural drama of the Jerusalem District Court, a parade of state witnesses, leaked tapes, and defensive posturing. And now, facing the exhaustion of the process and the mathematical probability of a guilty verdict, Netanyahu has decided to skip to the end of the book and write his own finale.
The request itself is a naked bid to place the premiership above the judiciary. It is an assertion that the political survival of one man is more important than the integrity of the legal system. Critics are shocked, which is charming but naive, because Netanyahu has spent his entire career demonstrating that he views constraints on his power as personal insults. To the opposition parties and legal scholars currently setting their hair on fire, this is the end of the rule of law. It is the moment when Israel ceases to be a state with a government and becomes a government with a state attached to it for tax purposes.
To his coalition allies and conservative backers, however, this is a necessary corrective. They argue, with the straight faces of men who have long ago traded shame for influence, that pardoning the Prime Minister will “restore political stability.” This is a fascinating use of the word “stability.” In this context, stability means the permanent, unquestioned rule of a leader who cannot be removed by voters or judges. It is the stability of a statue that refuses to be toppled. They are arguing that the country is too divided to prosecute its leader, ignoring the fact that the leader is the one holding the chisel that split the country in half.
The burden now falls on President Isaac Herzog, a man whose role is largely ceremonial, designed for ribbon cuttings and solemn speeches, not for deciding the fate of the republic’s legal soul. He is being handed a grenade with the pin pulled and told it is a gift. If he grants the clemency, he provokes a constitutional crisis that will make the judicial overhaul protests of last year look like a garden party. If he refuses, he becomes the target of a political machine that has no qualms about destroying institutions that do not bend the knee. It is a combustible situation, a stress test for a democracy that is already showing cracks in the foundation.
The Champagne and Cigar Defense
To understand the audacity of this request, one must look at the specific texture of the charges. Case 1000, Case 2000, and Case 4000 are not abstract white-collar crimes. They are stories about the petty, grasping nature of power. They are about a leader who allegedly felt entitled to a steady stream of luxury goods from billionaire friends. They are about a politician who allegedly tried to cripple a newspaper’s competition in exchange for better headlines. They are about a Prime Minister who allegedly fired communications officials to help a telecom tycoon in exchange for favorable coverage on a news site.
These are not crimes of passion or ideology. They are crimes of transactional narcissism. They suggest a worldview where the state exists to service the lifestyle and the image of the leader. When Netanyahu asks for a pardon, he is not just asking to avoid prison. He is asking the state to validate that worldview. He is asking the President to agree that yes, the rules for the Prime Minister are different. He is asking for a formal declaration that the “gifts” were just tribute, and the media manipulation was just governance.
The defense has always been that these investigations are a “witch hunt,” a “coup” orchestrated by the left-wing media and the deep state prosecution. This narrative has been pumped into the veins of the Israeli public for years. It has created a reality where half the country sees the trial as justice in action, and the other half sees it as a political persecution. By asking for a pardon now, before a verdict is even rendered, Netanyahu is betting that his base does not care about the evidence. He is betting that they care only about the win.
It is a cynical calculation, but it is not an irrational one. We live in an era where “accountability” is viewed by many as a partisan weapon. If “our guy” does it, it is smart politics. If “their guy” does it, it is treason. Netanyahu knows this. He knows that he can frame the pardon not as an admission of guilt, but as a way to “heal the nation.” He will say that the trial is tearing the country apart, conveniently omitting the fact that he is the one doing the tearing by refusing to step down.
This is the “stop hitting yourself” strategy of political survival. You create the chaos, you stoke the division, you attack the institutions, and then you offer yourself as the only person who can solve the problem by demanding total immunity. It is a protection racket where the thing being protected is the leader’s own freedom.
The Stability Myth
The argument for “stability” deserves to be dissected with a scalpel. The coalition allies arguing for the pardon claim that Israel cannot afford the distraction of a Prime Minister on trial during a time of security challenges and economic uncertainty. They claim that the legal process is paralyzing the government.
This argument relies on a magnificent inversion of logic. The paralysis is not caused by the trial; it is caused by the defendant. The instability is not the result of the law being enforced; it is the result of the Prime Minister spending half his time attacking the law enforcement agencies he is supposed to lead. Israel has a mechanism for dealing with a leader who cannot do the job because of legal troubles: resignation. It is a simple, elegant solution that has been used by leaders in democracies around the world.
But resignation requires a sense of shame, or at least a sense of duty to the collective. Netanyahu operates on a different operating system. For him, the state and the self are indistinguishable. L’État, c’est Bibi. Therefore, removing him is not a political transition; it is an amputation. The “stability” his supporters crave is the stability of a monarchy, where the king dies on the throne.
By accepting this argument, by granting a pardon in the name of stability, President Herzog would be establishing a terrifying precedent. He would be saying that if you become powerful enough, and if you make yourself indispensable enough (or at least loud enough), you become too big to jail. He would be codifying the idea that the law is a net designed to catch the small fish while the whales swim through the holes.
This is not stability. It is the institutionalization of corruption. It is a signal to every future politician, every mayor, every minister, that the key to avoiding prison is not to follow the law, but to accumulate enough power to hold the country hostage until they let you go.
The Herzog Dilemma
Poor Isaac Herzog. The presidency in Israel is supposed to be a unifying role. It is supposed to be above the fray. The President kisses babies, meets foreign dignitaries, and talks about the “fabric of society.” He is not supposed to be the guy who decides if the Prime Minister goes to Maasiyahu Prison or the King David Hotel.
But here he is, holding the hot potato. If he grants the pardon, he will be remembered as the man who buried Israeli democracy. He will be the Gerald Ford of the Middle East, but without the “long national nightmare is over” excuse, because this nightmare is structural. He will face immediate petitions to the High Court of Justice. The Supreme Court will have to decide if a presidential pardon can be used to stop a criminal trial in progress.
This sets up a collision between the executive and the judiciary that makes the previous judicial overhaul fight look like a warm-up act. The coalition has already threatened to strip the court of its power. If the court strikes down a pardon, the coalition will likely move to destroy the court entirely. Herzog knows this. He knows that his signature on that document is the fuse that could blow up the delicate balance of powers that keeps the state functioning.
On the other hand, if he refuses, he becomes the enemy of the “people,” or at least the segment of the people who worship Netanyahu. He will be accused of being a leftist collaborator. He will be targeted by the same hate machine that has targeted the Attorney General, the police commissioners, and the judges. He is in a no-win scenario, trapped between his conscience and a political buzzsaw.
The View from Abroad
While this domestic tragedy plays out, the world is watching. Israel’s international partners, particularly in Washington and Europe, are looking at this with a mixture of horror and exhaustion. They are already dealing with a government that includes far-right extremists. They are already navigating a complex diplomatic landscape regarding the conflict with the Palestinians. Now, they have to decide how to interact with a democracy that seems determined to lobotomize its own justice system.
A pardon would be a flashing red light for “democratic backsliding.” It puts Israel in the same club as Hungary or Turkey, nations where the forms of democracy remain but the substance has been hollowed out by strongmen who use the law as a weapon against their enemies and a shield for themselves. It makes it much harder for the United States to defend Israel in international forums as the “only democracy in the Middle East” when the Prime Minister is effectively above the law.
The diplomatic fallout would be subtle but real. Intelligence sharing might slow down. Trade deals might get stuck in committee. The “shared values” rhetoric that underpins the alliance would ring increasingly hollow. Western democracies tolerate a lot of imperfection in their allies, but they get nervous when the rule of law becomes optional. It makes the ally unpredictable. It makes them a liability.
The Streets Will Speak
We cannot ignore the street. The protest movement that rose up against the judicial overhaul has not disappeared; it has been resting. It is a dormant volcano. A pardon for Netanyahu would be the seismic event that wakes it up. We are talking about mass demonstrations that shut down the Ayalon Highway. We are talking about pilots refusing to train. We are talking about a general strike that paralyzes the economy.
The Israeli public, or at least the half that pays the taxes and serves in the army, is tired. They are tired of the drama. They are tired of the corruption. They are tired of being told that their country exists to keep one man out of jail. A pardon would be the final straw. It would be a declaration that their votes, their service, and their citizenship mean less than the political survival of the “Crime Minister.”
The clash would be visceral. It wouldn’t just be about legal theory. It would be about the social contract. Why should a reservist report for duty if the Prime Minister is exempt from the law? Why should a citizen pay taxes if the money is being used to fund the luxury habits of the ruling class? The pardon breaks the unspoken agreement that holds a society together. It replaces solidarity with cynicism.
The End of Shame
What we are witnessing is the death of shame as a political force. In a previous era, a leader facing these kinds of charges would have resigned in disgrace. They would have gone home to spend more time with their lawyers. But Netanyahu has proven that if you simply refuse to feel shame, if you refuse to accept the premise that you have done anything wrong, you can bend reality to your will.
He has normalized the abnormal. He has made it seem reasonable that a Prime Minister would spend his mornings in court and his afternoons running the security cabinet. He has made it seem routine that the police and the prosecution are framed as enemies of the state. The pardon request is just the logical endpoint of this process. It is the final assertion that he is the state, and the state cannot judge itself.
This is the danger of the populist strongman. They do not just break the laws; they break the norms. They break the shared understanding of what is acceptable. They drag the entire country down into the mud with them, forcing everyone to argue on their level. We are now debating whether a Prime Minister can pardon himself. The fact that we are even having the conversation is a defeat.
The Part They Hope You Miss
The most insidious part of this maneuver is the timing. By asking for the pardon now, Netanyahu is trying to preempt the verdict. He knows that a conviction changes the landscape. A convicted Prime Minister is a different political animal than an indicted one. He wants to stop the clock before the buzzer sounds. He wants to erase the history of the trial before the judgment is written.
It is an attempt to rewrite the past. If he gets the pardon, the narrative becomes “it was all a witch hunt that ended in nothing.” The evidence vanishes into the ether. The testimony of the witnesses becomes a footnote. The truth is buried under the stamp of the President.
He is banking on the short memory of the public. He believes that if he can just get past this hurdle, everyone will move on. They will focus on the next security crisis, the next election, the next outrage. He counts on our exhaustion. He counts on the fact that we are too tired to stay angry forever.
But the stain will remain. A pardon does not clean the record; it just closes the file. It leaves a permanent mark on the history of the nation. It says that in the year 2025, Israel decided that justice was too expensive, so it settled for “stability.”
The near-term consequences are concrete. We will see the lawsuits. We will see the protests. We will see the angry editorials. But the long-term consequence is a slow, corrosive rot. It is the feeling you get when you realize the game is rigged. It is the cynicism that takes root when you see that the rules apply to you, but not to them.
Democracies do not usually die in a single explosion. They die by a thousand cuts. They die when the public stops believing in the fairness of the system. A pardon for Netanyahu would be a very deep cut. It might not kill the patient immediately, but it would leave a scar that never heals. It would transform the country from a nation of laws into a nation of men, or rather, a nation of one man. And that is a price that no amount of “stability” can justify.
Fine Print for Grownups
The legal reality is that a presidential pardon power is usually intended for mercy, not for political convenience. It is a tool to correct miscarriages of justice, not to prevent justice from taking its course. By attempting to use it as a “get out of jail free” card for the head of government, Netanyahu is distorting the very concept of clemency. He is turning a humanitarian power into a political weapon. This is the hallmark of authoritarianism: the repurposing of democratic tools to dismantle democracy. The courts will likely have to step in, but even their intervention is a trap, designed to further delegitimize the judiciary in the eyes of the base. It is a game where the only winning move is not to play, but the country has no choice but to participate.