Overview
- Herzog’s office confirmed receipt of the application and sent it to the Justice Ministry’s Pardons Department, with a decision expected after legal opinions that could take weeks to months.
- Axios reported that Netanyahu asked President Donald Trump in a Monday call to continue backing the pardon push, after Trump previously urged Herzog in a letter to grant clemency.
- Opposition figures say any pardon should require an admission of guilt, remorse and withdrawal from politics, while legal analysts describe a pre-conviction pardon as extraordinarily rare under Israeli practice.
- Netanyahu, who has been on trial since 2020 on bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges, argues clemency would let him focus on national security and regional diplomacy without admitting wrongdoing.
- Netanyahu said he will visit New York despite Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to honor ICC warrants, a threat legal observers consider unlikely to be enforceable in the city.