Israeli PM's request for clemency over alleged graft risks constitutional crisis

He is seeking presidential pardon for charges he denies before any court has ruled on them

- Jonathan Eyal Global Affairs Correspondent

Protesters chanting slogans outside the home of Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv on Nov 30 following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's request for a presidential pardon over alleged corruption. PHOTO: AFP

(AFP)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has intensified his campaign to end the criminal charges he faces over alleged corruption.

He submitted a formal request for a pardon to President Isaac Herzog, Israel's head of state, on Nov 30.

Such appeals usually take weeks, if not months, before they get an answer from the President's office. But the Israeli Premier is a man in a hurry, so on Dec 4, he took to social media platform X to claim that he is innocent and that his prosecution is politically motivated.

"It’s a political trial. They (the prosecutors) are not interested in justice; they are interested in getting me out of office," Mr Netanyahu wrote.

The Israeli President's office is studiously ignoring the Prime Minister's latest intervention. But it is clear that Mr Netanyahu’s social media post, which was in English rather than in Hebrew, was intended as an appeal for political support from US President Donald Trump, who first raised the idea of a pardon.

And it is equally evident that, apart from seeking to escape his prosecution, Mr Netanyahu also aims to silence Israel's entire judicial system in the run-up to a heavily contested general election in 2026.

Mr Netanyahu was charged in 2019 with three criminal offences. The first is that he allegedly offered political favours in exchange for expensive cigars and crates of champagne worth 700,000 Israeli shekels (S$280,000) from a former Israeli Mossad security agent turned Hollywood mogul, and from Mr James Packer, an Australian billionaire.