TEL AVIV, Israel — Under assault on multiple fronts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu entered a packed courtroom in Jerusalem Monday as judges convened to hear for the first time of his years-long corruption trial since he formally requested from an Israeli president who had already humiliated him not once but twice a pardon backed by “his good friend Donald Trump.” His arrival, monitored by a small group of protesters outside, highlighted how his attempt to short-circuit the case with an unusual pre-conviction pardon was clashing with Israel’s legal norms and worsening a political brawl over the rule of law, Dec. 1, 2025.
At the Tel Aviv district court, Netanyahu sat expressionless as prosecutors and judges reviewed evidence in three corruption cases that have loomed over his premiership since 2019. Outside, demonstrators dressed in prison-style jumpsuits shouted that the defendant should receive a full verdict; a smaller contingent of supporters counter-protested that the trial had gone on too long. According to Reuters, opposition lawmakers reiterated that any pardon would need to be contingent on Netanyahu either admitting guilt or retiring from politics entirely.
Netanyahu’s Trump-backed pardon request challenges legal norms
The dramatic hearing came a day after Netanyahu published his formal request for Israeli President Isaac Herzog to issue a full pardon while the trial is ongoing. The 111-page filing argues that frequent court appearances are interfering with his ability to lead and claims that allowing the trial to continue would “heal rifts” and be in the national interest – despite Netanyahu maintaining his innocence and making no admission of guilt. As an Associated Press explainer explains, he is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to be put on trial and the first to ask for clemency at this stage of the process.
Herzog has submitted the request to the Justice Ministry’s pardons department, which may weigh it against the long-standing practice that holds that presidential pardons are issued only after conviction and, in most cases, after a show of contrition. Legal experts caution that a pardon in the middle of testimony would be an abrupt departure from Israel’s constitutional traditions and could be construed as political interference while the case is ongoing.
The push comes after months of Mr. Trump’s vocal support: In June, he publicly wrote that “Netanyahu’s trial should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY or a pardon given to a great hero,” putting the charges under an umbrella of grievance as a “witch hunt” akin to his own legal travails in the United States. Trump then amplified that message in a private letter to Herzog, calling for clemency — a push critics in both countries say muddies the line between alliance politics and Israel’s judicial independence.
Netanyahu’s years-long legal and judicial battles laid the groundwork.
Netanyahu was charged in 2019 with bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in three cases that accused him of trading regulatory favors and access for lavish gifts and favorable media coverage. His trial began in May 2020, when he showed up at a Jerusalem courthouse surrounded by cheering loyalists and attacked police, prosecutors, and the media as part of a doomed political campaign to unseat him, according to AP coverage of the first hearing.
The three affairs — Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000 — have since largely charted the course of Netanyahu’s political life. In a December 2024 AP analysis, it is discussed how prosecutors say that, in exchange for expensive cigars and champagne, they sought to shape newspaper coverage or bestowed hundreds of millions of dollars in regulatory favors on a telecom tycoon to extort positive headlines. In May, Netanyahu testified for the first time that month while insisting he’d done nothing wrong, even as war in Gaza and regional tensions dominated Israel’s security agenda.
The legal spectacle has played out amid a wider battle over the courts themselves. In 2023, Netanyahu’s government pushed through a wide-ranging judicial shake-up that would have clipped the Supreme Court’s powers and increased politicians’ influence in choosing judges, spurring the biggest street protests in Israel’s history. Critics cautioned then that the package risked undermining judicial independence and perhaps paving the way to soften the blow of his corruption trial, findings detailed in a concurrent Reuters examination of the overhaul fight.
Today’s courtroom showdown knits together those strands: a prime minister who has been battling prosecutors for years, a judiciary that has proved unyielding to past attempts to bring it under tighter political control, and a president now called upon to make that once-in-a-generation clemency decision. Herzog has refused to set a deadline and is squeezed by both coalition partners, who consider Netanyahu essential, and opponents who say a pardon should come after conviction, admission of guilt, and exit from political life.
Netanyahu, for now, remains in the dock — with his lawyers claiming they could clear his name even as they demand the case be halted. What the president of Israel does these days in deciding whether and how to grant, condition, or reject the request will determine much more than Netanyahu’s political fate — just as fecklessness now may determine, for generations, how far a sitting Israeli prime minister is willing to go against the guardrails of law.
