Explained: Corruption case for which Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has submitted a pardon request to President?

New Delhi: In a much talked about and significant move, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has requested a pardon from the country’s President in relation to the trial on his corruption charges. A contentious issue in Israeli politics ever since it began, Netanyahu’s request met with indignation by opposition politicians on one hand, but it did see some supporters coming out as well.

The president’s office called the request "extraordinary,” with "significant implications.” Netanyahu’s request is extremely divisive, seen as a tussle between Israel’s justice system and the Prime Minister's hold on power.

Benjamin Netanyahu is the only sitting prime minister in Israel’s history to stand trial as he is faced with charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. The major corruption charges pertain to exchanging favors with wealthy political supporters. These include a Hollywood producer, telecom company and newspaper publisher.

The Israeli Justice Ministry after significant investigations announced indictments in three cases in 2019 and the trial began in May 2020. The Prime Minister however rejects the allegations, declining the allegations and the trial as a witch hunt orchestrated by his opponents. 

Importantly, Netanyahu has repeatedly requested postponements of his testimony, mainly citing security issues around the Israel-Hamas war. With the war now waning away, the srtunity around Netanyahu and the trial is returning in full swing, and it is in response to this that his application for clemency to the President can be viewed.

Netanyahu maintains that his pardon request would help unify Israel during the current tumultuous time that the larger region is witnessing. He continues to claim that an "immediate conclusion of the trial would greatly help to lower the flames and promote the broad reconciliation that our country so desperately needs.”

Netanyahu’s arguments have seen both support and derision. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has, for example, expressed support for his request. Several opponents however have voiced their disagreement of the pardon request, saying how it would weaken Israeli democratic institutions including the judiciary. Major opposition leader Yair Lapid, for example, argued against the granting of a pardon "without an admission of guilt, an expression of remorse and an immediate retirement from political life.”

Related to the issue is the dissatisfaction of many Israeli citizens. One group of them comprise those who see Netanyahu’s 2022 attempts to overhaul the justice system as an attempt to weaken the system of checks and balances and having a conflict of interest at a time when he was on trial, something that his pardon request now continues. Another segment includes some parents of hostages long held in Gaza who accused Netanyahu of drawing out the war with Hamas as part of efforts to stay in office.