Hadash call on President Isaac Herzog on Monday, December 1, to reject far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a formal pardon. According to Hadash: “There is no pardon for the genocide war in Gaza.”  Netanyahu, on trial facing corruption charges, announced Sunday he had submitted a pardon request, saying the long-running cases were tearing the country apart.

“Banana republic”, activists protest outside the home of President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv, calling not to grant a pardon to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, November 30, 2025 (Photo: Erik Marmor/Flash90)

US President Donald Trump wrote to Israeli President Isaac Herzog earlier this month, asking him to pardon Netanyahu, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the ongoing court cases. “The trial in my case has been ongoing for nearly six years, and is expected to continue for many more years,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. He said he wanted to see through the process until acquittal, “but the security and political reality — the national interest — dictate otherwise. The State of Israel is facing enormous challenges”. The premier and his wife Sara are accused in one case of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewelry and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favors.

According to Hadash MK Ayman Odeh: “It is expected of every person to understand that this move by Netanyahu is intended for one purpose: that you talk about it… and not talk about the execution in Jenin by Ben Gvir’s platoons, not about the targeted elimination of the two children on Sunday in Gaza, not about the regime coup, not about the budget that will harm each and every one of you, not about the political violence, not about the ethnic cleansing, not about the unbearable crime and murder in Arab society, and not about the economic and social situation that’s at an unprecedented low…that you talk about the ‘pardon’ that is imagined, but that you do not talk about the abandonment, the destruction, or about the simple fact that Netanyahu is a war criminal, and should stand trial in The Hague”.

The Movement for Quality Government asserts that granting Netanyahu a pardon in the middle of the legal proceedings against him would constitute “a deadly blow to the rule of law and to the principle of equality before the law, the very soul of Israeli democracy.” “Granting a pardon to a prime minister accused of serious offenses of fraud and breach of trust would send a clear message that some citizens are above the law,” the watchdog group states, calling on Herzog to “stand firm against the pressures and defend Israeli democracy.”

Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=32711