The Pardon

by Ari Bussel

Translation by Peloni for IsraPundit (online)

President Yitzhak Herzog, at the annual training of the Ministry of Justice in Eilat, on the subject of “reading diversity”. Tuesday, November 8, 2022. Photo by Amos Ben Gershom / Government Press Office of Israel, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikipedia

The top headlines report that President Trump continues to pressure President Herzog to grant a pardon to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The American President expects this to happen, not because he said so, but because common sense demands it. His entire second term is a victory of common sense over the madness of the systems that gnawed at and threatened to collapse all of the USA. Therefore, President Herzog’s arguments that Israel is a sovereign state with a judicial system and law and order are simply not valid. The child with the strange haircut shouts to the Israeli monarch (a president, son of a president, from a distinguished family of rabbis in Ireland): “You are naked!” and the king continues to ponder before the mirror and ask: “Mirror, mirror, who is the most handsome of them all?”

President Herzog wants to appear as someone who does not surrender and does not accept dictates—very commendable—but he is certainly not foolish, and the day when he will have to decide is approaching quickly. From the pace of President Trump’s remarks, it seems that President Herzog’s time has run out, and soon his patience will expire and the games will end once and for all.

The strange thing is that it is actually President Herzog, who is so closely connected to the US (both by virtue of his previous positions and through his support among American Jews and the ruling establishment in Israel and the USA), that is provoking the American president. He knows he is playing with fire. For example, the next time he wishes to come on an official visit to America, the State Department will “consider the request” or be entangled in the bureaucracy of procedures—just as the President now excuses the passing months and the failure to make a decision. Or, the President will arrive to meet with heads of state, and by some miracle there will be delays or mistakes about who sits where, or who is invited to the stage, or who is excluded. The cost, by the way, will be entirely on the Israeli president, and in our days, when the condition of the State of Israel is dire, does he really want to risk this and further deteriorate our standing?

It would be wise for President Herzog not to play with the American president, because the latter is an expert in all possible maneuvers—in every shtick and trick, even those that have not yet been invented—and he has the means and the power, whereas the former has absolute dependence and his entire status is merely ceremonial in the country and devoid of any meaning or abilities outside it.

A pardon, to remind the honorable Israeli president, must be absolute, and not conditioned on various strange conditions (“retire,” “do not run,” “disappear from the world,” and other things which they want to force Netanyahu to swallow in their entirety).

Why is it so important to heed what the American president says? Simply because it is good for Israel. Sometimes the system needs a shock in order to restore its calibration, just like an electric shock to the heart when the body suffers from fibrillations and irregularity in heart activity.

The ongoing threat against the Prime Minister and the diversion of all his attention to outrageous local legal proceedings are a sin against the good of the state. Every second that the Prime Minister has to think about or deal with or appear regarding champagne and cigars and Bugs Bunny and questions about a pet cat or dog from 11 years ago or more detracts from his ability to focus on the Iranian threat (of Iran and all its proxies), and that should concern us all.

The kindergarten-like routine of appearing during the weekdays before a three judge panel, like the lowest of defendants, and literally begging whenever he needs to host a foreign head of state or fly to a more or less fateful meeting or deal with the daily affairs of the state, means that it is not Netanyahu who is running the country but rather three judges, real kindergarten teachers, who are playing make-believe. They — deserve a vacation. He, even after returning from a marathon of meetings in the USA, must appear the next morning without delay. The prosecution demands it!

Wake up, honorable President—every minute that passes without an absolute, unequivocal, and unconditional pardon means continued suffering and abuse. The responsibility is on you. And for what? The Prime Minister is credited with the longest term of service in Israel’s history, more than David Ben-Gurion. Many merits are to his credit. Does he not deserve that we let him be, that we stop the abuse? He is no longer young, and at the end of the day, he is only flesh and blood, like each of us. How he can stand firm against all the attacks, I do not know. Since the American president experienced precisely the same torments, there exists an understandable bond between him and the Prime Minister, just like the bond that requires no verbal expression between those redeemed from captivity from the hands of Satan in Gaza. Continued disregard of the American President’s demands and expectations will exact a heavy and very painful price.

It is time to restore sanity to the systems—and unfortunately to the state—that have entered a real tailspin. This began in the nine months before the Seventh of October, continued throughout the entire course of the war (except for the first few weeks when we were still in total shock), and continues even more intensely now, when it seems to us that we have earned a respite; and yet, such is not the case.

If the President of Israel does not come to his senses and pardon the Prime Minister fully and without conditions, not only he will pay the price, but we all will.

Since this will continue to cause damage to the interests of the USA and to the policy of the American president, President Herzog must intervene. And what does not go by pleasant means will happen by force. And what does not happen by force due to the refusal and games of the Israeli president, will indeed happen with even greater force.