Netanyahu Seeks Pardon - with Amit Segal and Nadav Eyal

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If Netanyahu is saying, I'm gonna kill the judicial overhaul, even if he's saying this off the record, if you give me a pardon, that means that the judicial overhaul that he went through after he was indicted was only a bargaining chip to get to this point.

I don't think Nadav, Amit, Dan, and the state of Israel has another six years to spend on this.

And I think it's time to take the pill and in order not to puke and to actually end this trial once and for all.

It's 3 p.m. on Sunday, November 30th here in New York City.
It is 10 p.m. on Sunday, November 30th in Israel, where Israelis are winding down their day and processing a pretty newsy day.

Today, Sunday, President Isaac Herzog received a formal request from Prime Minister Netanyahu for a pardon in his years-long corruption trial.

The documents included a 111-page letter written by Netanyahu's lawyer, Amit Hadad, in which he argued that a pardon would allow the Prime Minister to focus squarely on advancing Israel's interest and would, quote, mend rifts between different sectors of the public, close quote.

Notably, Netanyahu's letter does not include an apology or admission of guilt or any offer to step away from elected politics.

This development comes just over two weeks after President Trump directly requested of Herzog that he pardon the prime minister, referring to Netanyahu's trial as a, quote, political, unjustifiable prosecution, close quote.

As expected, Netanyahu's request has elicited fierce criticism from opposition figures.

President Herzog issued an official response stating, quote, after receiving all the relevant opinions, the president will responsibly and sincerely consider the request, close quote.

We now await the president's final decision, which could take weeks.

To unpack Netanyahu's request for a pardon and the implications, we are joined by two of the best-sourced journalists in Israel, Archimedia contributors Nadav Ayel and Amit Segel. Amit Nadav.

I will start by saying that we have all been waiting for or thinking about this next year before Israeli elections as the referendum, the capital T in the referendum on Netanyahu, but it may be arriving actually sooner with this decision over a pardon.

And I want to start with you, Nadav. You are on vacation.
If people are watching this, you are not your typical spot. We will leave it as an undisclosed location, but you're following things closely.

What's your initial response to this development?

What Netanyahu is actually at least hinting to in the letter that he himself sent, and there are two different, as you said, Dan, there are two different documents here.

One document is the document that was sent by his lawyer, and another document is the letter that he sent to the president of Israel.

In that letter that he sent to the president, there is actually no indictment and there is no request for a pardon or an amnesty of any sort. The word pardon or amnesty is simply isn't there.

But if you actually read what Netanyahu is saying, and it's a very important hint, if this case will close, I'll be able to focus on issues like the Israeli media and the judicial system.

Now, why would Netanyahu even write that in a letter?

What he's actually saying there, at least hinting, is if you close down the case against me, if you let me off the hook hook of my legal troubles, the judicial overhaul is over and done with.

And the law that is going to pass the Knesset, which will actually reform the media market in Israel in a way that many people interpret as actually giving the government much more control over commercial media, independent media, that would also die.

This is the undercurrent. I'm also hearing this from Likud ministers.
They're saying the same thing. Actually, what Netanyahu is saying, you want this to go away? It begins with a pardon.

Now, I'm not sure that everyone who supports Netanyahu will back this interpretation, this hint, but it's definitely there in the letter.

So, Netanyahu wanted us to at least air the possibility that this is what he's looking for.

Amit, your thoughts both specifically on that particular point that Nadavis raising there at the end, and just more broadly, your reactions.

So, four years ago, Netanyahu's opponents had their best shot ever forcing Netanyahu to resign because there was a deal on the table, a plea deal between Netanyahu and the Attorney General back then, Manderblit, according to which Netanyahu was to resign and the Attorney General was to actually let him get away with it, ending the trial with no punishment.

However, many people were against it, but the most significant opposition came from the center-left coalition. The main sentiment was Netanyahu is part of the past.

Bennett and Lapid are here for the next three and a half years. There is no point to actually let Netanyahu go, even if he resigns from politics, because we want to see him in jail.

The outcome was that this quid pro quo ended with nothing. Eight months later, Netanyahu was re-elected in yet another referendum about Netanyahu.
This is the number who counts.

And now they meet a very different deal. The deal no longer demands the resigning of Netanyahu,

but even if you take the staunchest position towards Netanyahu, admitting the facts of the case, but it's no longer about ending his political career.

President Herzog is now considering giving Netanyahu a presidential pardon in return, neither for resigning nor for pleading guilty.

But maybe if he agrees, as Nadav just mentioned, to end the judicial reform, to moderate it, to stop trying to shut the ief radio who knows so netanyahu comes in better terms and he wants to buy the risks as for now the price that he offers to buy the risks at is zero all he said was you can end the trial i guess president herzog is going to make some conditions maybe the condition would be let's set a date for your resignation let's end all this discourse and fights about the judicial reform that's why i think that herzog's response would be yes but okay so much to unpack here so nada first what authority does the president of israel leave bougie herzog out of this for a moment just the president of israel has because so many of these kinds of laws in israel i sometimes feel like the israeli system is kind of making it up as it goes along and this feels like one of those just looking at the law what authority does the president have the law says and i'm gonna quote the exact part of the israeli basic law as to the president of israel the president of the state holds the authority to pardon offenders and to reduce or commute their sentences.

That's it, Dan. Okay, so this sounds like an absolute authority of the president to do whatever he wants in terms of pardoning, very much, very close to what the president of the United States can do.

However, unlike in the U.S., that clause in the law says specifically that he holds the authority to pardon offenders.

And of course, in order to be an offender, you need to get a verdict in a court of law, allegedly.

Now, we can't speak about this entire legal affairs without talking about the 300 bus story or scandal. And it's maybe the most dramatic legal event till the Netanyahu trial.

It was called the 300 bus scandal in 1984 to 1996.

A group of Shinbet fighters killed two terrorists who tried to kidnap the bus number 300 near Ashkelon in southern Israel. And just to be clear, they killed them after they had captured them.

That was the scandal, right?

They claimed it happened during the attempt to actually release the passengers, but a picture taken by a newspaper photojournalist found out that they were alive once the kidnapping had already ended.

So they claimed that the IDF killed them and it was found out that they lied.

And then in order to save the need for the Sinbet to go into trial, the entire senior leadership of the Shinbet, President Herzog, the father of the current president, pardoned the senior figures of the Shinbet in return for resignation prior to the trial.

And the Supreme Court actually approved this decision in a 423 decision. The pardon was for the leaders of the Shinbet? Yes, those who committed the crime and those who approved it.

Which is important because it wasn't just some mid-level operatives that were pardoned. It was also senior, it was senior officials.
It went all the way up.

It began with the officer who killed with his bare hands and stones the terrorists, and it ended up with the head of the Shinbet who lied and tried to actually cover it.

Now, here's the thing: there are many similarities and many things that are different.

The different things are, for instance, that they murdered two Palestinians, two terrorists, and Netanyahu didn't murder anyone.

On the other hand, they admitted at least the facts and some of them took responsibility and Netanyahu didn't do it.

But the common things are that those were two cases in which the presidents from the Herzog family believed that the public interest demands ending the legal issue in order to save the country.

President Herzog the father believed that it would cause a permanent damage for the Shinbet And President Herzog the son believes that this trial is causing a permanent damage for the state of Israel.

Those are the similarities and the differences between the two cases. This is a little confusing to our listeners.

I just want to say, so President Chaim Herzog, who's the current president's father, as Amit said, was present from 83 to 93, 1983 to 1993.

And I think when the Bus 300 affair occurred, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who is the Likud successor to Menachem Begin, was Prime Minister during the foiled terror attack and and then the quote-unquote cover-up.

But the prime minister who was in power when the pardon was orchestrated was Shimon Perez, was Prime Minister Shimon Perez, right? It was a national unity government. So it was an agreement.

Even what Shamir did, it doesn't matter who was the prime minister in that sense, that it was a coalition government. It was a different time.
Meaning they both supported it. Oh, absolutely.

They both wanted this to go away. And what you and Amit just spoke about, about admitting the facts, is actually where this thing with Netanyahu is going as Amit mentioned at the beginning.

So Netanyahu at the past like a year or two years ago and as far as the Israeli opposition is concerned now the question is will you retire for your cases to go away?

Very few people from the mainstream even opposition in Israel think that he's going to serve time in jail. But they're saying if you want this to go away you need to plead guilty.

You need to get some sort of a plea deal or even a pardon after you plead guilty because you're not an offender. You can't get it.
And as Amid said, you didn't admit the facts.

These opposition figures are saying right now, you know, talk about the retirement of Netanyahu.

What Netanyahu is saying, no, let's talk about the phrases I will use in which I admit parts of the facts so it will count as though I took some responsibility and the president will be able to pardon me.

In other words, he's talking about exchanging words for a pardon. Now, in Israel, we should say that we had a prime minister that went to jail for corruption charges,

his finance minister, Hirson, that went to jail. We had a president, Moshei Khatzav, that went to jail for rape.

For Netanyahu to get this, whatever people think about the charges against him, whatever they think about Netanyahu personally and his contribution or his responsibility for Oktora 7, it doesn't matter.

For Netanyahu to get this is highly extraordinary in Israeli political story, right?

Everything is extraordinary, but this is not how the Israeli system usually treats people who are considered to be offenders or are standing to trial.

The cleanest way to look at it would be for one side to argue, hey, all you wanted is Netanyahu to retire. So you're using, you're weaponizing the judicial system, right?

But if Netanyahu is saying, I'm going to kill the judicial overhaul, even if he's saying this off the record, if you give me a pardon, that means that the judicial overhaul that he went through after he was indicted was only a bargaining chip to get to this point.

Nadav, I would like to add to this, because first of all, that's exactly how I read this sentence in Netanyahu's letter.

But from speaking to his close entourage, he claimed exactly the other way around, that it would enable him to keep legislating the judicial reform.

I don't know how it is supposed to be convincing or to tempt. What does that mean? I mean, explain what you mean by that.
Netanyahu is going on a very narrow bridge.

He tries both to convince President Helzog to give him a pardon and, exactly as Nadav said, to convince his supporters from the right wing that he hadn't given up any of his claims against the judicial reform.

Because people say, listen, you convinced us that there is nothing in this trial. So why do you need a pardon? I mean, you can just, you know, get acquitted in the trial.

Why would you try to have some shortcuts? What you just said is really important.

Netanyahu kept on saying before the trial began, all I want is is for the trial to happen so I can prove my innocence and give me the time.

And then he said also when this was brought to the Supreme Court that he can't be a prime minister and stand trial.

And according to Israeli standard procedure and rulings, ministers who stand for trial for offenses that are less severe than the ones that Netanyahu is being accused at at three different cases, they can't be ministers in the the government of Israel.

Yes, but from a constitutional perspective, once the prime minister is forced to resign, it necessarily means that the entire government collapses.

What Amid just said is true that there is a specific clause in the law as to a prime minister, and he can keep on his position while being indicted. And it's the reason that Amid just gave.

But that wasn't the question.

And for me, Israel's original sin, legally speaking of the Supreme Court, was not that the Supreme Court didn't say you need to resign, but the Supreme Court said you can assemble a government.

You can receive the mandate from the president of Israel to assemble a government while the president knows, and it was Herzog, and the Supreme Court knows that the man is indicted.

Now, Netanyahu, just to drive it back home, said, There's no problem that I do both.

I can be the prime minister of Israel, a highly demanding job, and I can perform in court every day because I have special powers. He used this expression, if I'm not mistaken.
I can do everything.

I'm overqualified to do both. These days, his argument is it's impossible.
I can't perform in court every day. I can't come and so forth.

I think that the worst scene of the Supreme Court is the attempt to even consider taking the millions of Israeli votes and say, no, you can't have you the prime minister that you wish to have, because we decide otherwise.

There isn't a single thing in the Israeli law that enables the Supreme Court even to discuss the opportunity or the option not to let Netanyahu to actually form a coalition once he got the support of 61 Knesset members exactly as the law demands.

So this is one thing. Nadav touches the very essence of it.
It's not Netanyahu in a criminal case. It's something way bigger than this.

Because even if we put aside the criminal indictments against Prime Minister Netanyahu, this is something way bigger about the relationship between the judicial system and the political arena.

I want to give you an example because I have an opinion about it and Nadav has and I guess we don't share the same opinion. However, I think after 10 and a half years, time's up for this thing.

We can't allow ourselves as a country to actually reach to 2031 before we have the final verdict from the Supreme Court.

And this is the current assumption in Israel that it's going to take yet another five to six years before the Supreme Court is to give the final verdict.

Now, I'm quite convinced that Netanyahu's investigation was flawed, that there was some sort of conspiracy into it, that there were illegal procedures taken, and Nadav is utterly convinced, I'm sure, that Netanyahu might be guilty and that no one asks for pardon if he feels innocent.

However, I don't think Nadav, Amit, Dan, and the state of Israel has another six years to spend on this.

And I think it's time to take the the pill and in order not to puke and to actually end this trial once and for all and I'm open for every opportunity because I personally believe that the October 7th massacre emanated directly from the fight in Israel that rendered Israel's political system from yet another political system in which you have coalition and opposition to a culture war, a religion war between the baby derangement syndrome people and the only baby syndrome.

And we must put the end once and for all for this. Okay, let's take a break to hear a word from our sponsor.

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Okay, Nadav, let me ask you this. First of all, you mentioned Ahud Omer.

You mentioned other Israeli leaders went to prison for lesser crimes than Netanyahu is being accused of, although Omer resigned from office in 2009 and his trial and conviction were not for years later.

He resigned then because people like me that might have supported some of his opinions on certain issues said that he needs to resign when the police investigation was opened.

He had no echo chamber that Netanyahu has through various people who represent him or would want to echo his arguments that say that he needs to stay in office.

That was very true for Yitzhak Rabin, who was the first prime minister to resign because of what? Because of a bank account with $300 in it that was against the law back in the 1970s.

I know that some people that listen to you, Dan, they appreciate what Israel is and Israel as a special place and Israel's principles and values. Well, values are where it's hard.

And it's the Israeli way that tackles these issues, that doesn't think that if a prime minister received gifts like worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, doesn't matter if it's boxes of champagne or if jewelry or cigars used by codename to an American friend that also asked him for favors, that this is just nonsense.

Now, I understand that some people do think that this is just minimal things. It's not as important as...

Look, I take your point that Omer did not have the support within a, like he didn't have a political base the way Netanyahu has.

So he had nowhere nowhere to go is basically, I think, what you're arguing. In 2009, when he resigned, he knew he was under legal pressure or growing legal pressure.

Ultimately, he didn't go to prison, as I said, till years later, wasn't found guilty. And he didn't have some base of support.
Netanyahu does.

Now, you could say that's fair, that's unfair, but that's just a reality. Netanyahu does have.

The country is much more polarized along a number of issues, including this one, as Amit says, than it was when Omer was in power. That is what it is.

My only point is what I'm struck by, Nadav, and I am not a legal expert, and I'm certainly not an Israeli legal expert, but having consulted some legal experts in Israel, one of whom is a fierce critic of Netanyahu on other issues, did make the point, a number of them make the point, that these cases, while there's substance to them, they're not a slam dunk.

They're not totally persuasive. And if you are going to remove a sitting prime minister from office and bring down a government, the cases got to be pretty buttoned down.

And if they are not that persuasive, and I think you would probably even argue that they're not, you know, totally buttoned down, you know, in terms of the strength and persuasiveness of them, it is putting enormous pressure on the political system and on the trust that close to half the country who supports this prime minister, you know, has in the system.

Of course, I think that nothing is a slam dank for me generally. I believe in the judicial process.
I believe that until a man is proven guilty, until a verdict is being handed, he's not guilty.

And that's true for Prime Prime Minister Netanyahu as well.

But if you talk with legal experts, they probably told you that what we call the 1000 case, the first case as to gifts received by the Prime Minister, since the facts are not really debated, that is a slam dunk.

Now, the question there is, is it bribery or is it just breach of trust, criminal breach of trust? That's the question. As to 2,000 and 4,000, which are different cases, there are questions there.

But the question you raised, Dan, sort of supposes that this is about Netanyahu being prime minister, because if the court rules that he's guilty, he's going to cease to be prime minister.

And as Amid said earlier, that's not going to happen with this court. That's going to happen only with the Supreme Court appeal.
That's going to take years from now.

So the way that you just frame this as though we're either months away or a year away from a decision by the court to overthrow a ruling prime minister. Well, this is not where we are at right now.

Meaning he'll play out for so much longer that it won't. Yeah, it's not about that.
It's about Netanyahu wants this over. Okay.

And because he fears that after he's not prime minister, and this is one of the reasons he's doing this now, that after that, he might go to jail.

Or not, I don't think that he's going to go to jail at about the age of 80, but being indicted and having some sort of criminal verdict against him. So it's really not about that.

Now, the thing is is that again and again during this conversation, we're not speaking about why this is taking so long.

It's taking so long because the prime minister has decided to use every means in his power to make it as long as a process as he can.

And because the previous attorney general, Mendelblit, that Amit mentioned, decided to basically

you know, took a really long time in deciding this.

Now, the current attorney general that Netanyahu sees as his fiercest enemy, that was nominated in the previous government, she wants to get to a plea deal. Everybody wants a plea deal, Dan.

The president wants a plea deal. The attorney general wants a plea deal.
The lawyers who are persecuting this want a plea deal.

The problem is that Netanyahu is not willing to give anything in that plea deal that will lead to his political demise.

That's the real thing. He wants to survive this.
He wants to get out of this completely scratch-free. And this is about this.

Now, as to what happened to the Israeli society, well, those protests weren't about the Netanyahu trial. There were protests about Netanyahu standing to trial, okay?

What we call the Balfur demonstrations.

But they were much more limited if you compare them to the widest protest in the history of Israel, the judicial overhaul or judicial coup protests in Kaplan and many other places.

places across the country. Now, why did these happen?

They happened because Netanyahu changed his view that he held for 60 years or more than that as to the importance of the Supreme Court.

Netanyahu, as late as 2015, said, and I'm quoting, we must constantly fortify the power of the country's democratic institutions, foremost among them, the judicial system, which must remain robust and independent.

The Supreme Court is the cornerstone of Israeli democracy. More than that, it's a beacon of justice and morality.

And then he went on to quote Alan Dershowitz and Irvin Kotler, who say that it is the most independent judicial system in the world. That was 2015.

A few years later, there's a police investigation and the man who holds the helm of the country rediscovers the idea that maybe Israel's judges are too independent and maybe they're too left-leaning and he needs to have a reform.

So I totally agree with Amit with the bottom line of Amit. We need this case over.
But the question is, how?

And what does it say to all the other politicians that are standing now to police investigations? Okay, Amit, there's a lot to respond there.

Yeah, so let's set the record straight about Netanyahu's criminal cases in order to understand how different it is from the Olmert and Hirson cases. The Hirson case was very simple.

There was a treasury minister that stole money. The Olmert case was rather clear and classic as well.
It was about taking bribery. The Netanyahu cases were based on legal precedents.

The former former attorney of the state, Shane Itsan, admitted it. He said this was a precedent, but we cannot avoid trying to set it because it's only the prime minister.

Now, I think this was a miserable mistake because you do not try to create legal precedents when it's the prime minister, when you take the country for a rendezvous that might last for years.

And it's not only me who thinks this, because the case 4000, the only case with bribery in it, collapsed even before Netanyahu testified himself.

It collapsed while his prosecutor is still trying to make the case. The judges came to them and said, We recommend that you actually don't try to indict Netanyahu anymore with those cases.

Now, does Netanyahu prolong the process?

Maybe, but I think that the most problematic thing that actually prolonged the process is the refusal of the current attorney general to admit the reality, to recognize what the reality is, and to actually adopt the recommendation of the judges.

But Amit didn't even reach the 4,000 testimony.

So even if they would have taken the advice of the judges and these proceedings are still being held, it wouldn't have shortened the way that we have gotten here.

There is a reason why they don't do it. Because for them, it's a religion.
It's not something legal anymore.

Why didn't Taviha Manil, the former Attorney General, took Netanyahu to the 1,000 case only? Because this was the first case. And as Nadav says, this is the case that worries Netanyahu the most.

Because he knew it's not enough. If you want to take the country for this crazy trip, you have to base your case on something bigger than the case 1000 of cigars and champagne.
It's not me saying it.

It's Avichai Mandalit himself who said this. Now, they were left now without the main course.

They have only the dessert or the degestif or the operative, but they don't have the main course.

And I think that after 10 years of trying to tackle Netanyahu's regime, it's time to recognize the facts that all you have at hand is this relatively marginal case.

Now, Nadav might say, no, you can go to jail with those indictments. And yes, technically you can.
But I don't believe that at the age of 81 or 82, anyone is going to send Netanyahu to jail.

I think for Netanyahu, it's like the name of the feature, a clear and present danger. So this is a clear danger, of course.

When you are indicted in court, the conviction rate in Israel in criminal cases is 97%.

So Netanyahu has, let's say, not 3%, but 30% of getting acquitted. He won't take this risk.
However, this is not a present danger because once this is decided, Netanyahu will no longer be in office.

So it's time for us once and for all to end this tragedy that, in my opinion, caused for the October 7th tragedy because we were obsessed with defeating each other, getting the 61st seat.

I'll give you an example. Nadav knows it very well.

This religion war between center left and right in Israel about Bibi came to a level in which one evening the leader of the Labour Party shaved his moustache in order to actually swear that he's not going to enter Netanyahu's coalition.

Now, this is time to end this church of yes, baby, no, baby. And this is the way to do it, in my opinion.
Okay, I have a question for Amit, but Nadav, I'm going to give you a a chance to respond.

Yeah, I think that this entire framing of this as a crazy crusade against Netanyahu, considering all we know about what the Israeli judicial system, the way that it has treated people from both sides of the aisles, by the way, the first of which was a prime minister from Labor, Itzraq Rabin, that was a hero of Israel.

To describe this as a crusade against Netanyahu is indeed, for me, the Netanyahu derangement syndrome. It's just the the other way around.
It's everything about BB. It's not about the offense.

It's not about the facts. It's not about the history of the judicial system.
It's not about presidents that go to an investigation. Qatar was not the first.

We had Isa Weizmann that needed to retire because of a corruption charge. We have so many mayors and municipalities' heads.

This idea that in this country people are truly equal in front of the law is an essential idea.

Now, what Amid does here is, I think, Amid, that you are mixing together two different things, very different things.

One of them is the Netanyahu corruption trial. It exists.

And the other one is that Netanyahu has spent his entire career talking against what he labeled the Israeli elites or the lefties who forgot how to be Jews.

This is his statements, not, you know, someone who wrote about him. This is not books.

This is the way that he oh netanyahu is good for the jews there are so many mistakes that he made in that regard and mistakes for me in terms of national unity and because of that half the country including many many right-wingers represented by liberman or by somewhat to some extent bennett some right-wingers i know that most of the people who support him right now are not exactly right-wingers but many of these people would not want to sit together with Netanyahu in the same coalition, not because it's a religion, not because it's an obsession, not because they are deranged, but because the voters see this prime minister, who I think served more time as a prime minister than frankly the Lano Roosevelt spent as the president of the United States.

So they do not want it. And it has nothing to do with the trial.
Nadav, you are absolutely right. But here's the thing.

Until 2015, I mean, people hated or loved Netanyahu very passionately since he entered politics in 1988. However, till 2015, there wasn't a moratorium on sitting with Netanyahu.

Even Herzog, who today is the president, but was the labor leader, the leader of the opposition, didn't say that he's not willing to sit with Netanyahu. He actually wanted to sit with him.

But from 2019, Gantz, Lapid, even today, Bennett these days, every one of them refuses to sit with Netanyahu. And I ask myself, what happened between 2015 and 2019?

And my answer is 2016, the investigation against Netanyahu. Gantz joined his government in a rotation agreement.
Only because of a world plague. During COVID.
Yes. Or the October 7th war.

Meaning these leaders ran saying they would never sit with Netanyahu. That's, I think, the point.
Gantz was much less upbeat as to that.

And the reason, if you speak with Gantz today and you ask him if he'll sit with Netanyahu, that's a good example of me. He'll say never.
Why? After the war. He sat with Netanyahu.
And what happened?

Netanyahu cheated him. This is not a question.
Nadav, it's fascinating. I wouldn't sit with Netanyahu because I don't trust a promise of him, okay?

But here's the thing: till 2015, everyone agreed to sit with Netanyahu. No one bent him save the far left and the Arab parties.

And from 2019, even the moderate figures, like Benny Gantz, repeatedly said that they refused to sit with Netanyahu. So what they happened? And the answer is the 2016-2017 criminal investigations.

I think I know this camp as good as you know, and probably better. Netanyahu has become, in many, many circles of the Israeli society illegitimate as a partner for a coalition government.

It doesn't mean that they don't recognize him as a prime minister. They don't want people who vote for a party don't want that party to give credence or power to Netanyahu.

And the reason for that is not because they are infatuated with the corruption charges against him or they are convinced that Netanyahu is an arch criminal bigger than all murder.

It's because, here I go, Amit. they've had enough.
And after many, many years of Netanyahu's prime minister, the circles of the opposition have had enough with him.

Every time he makes an agreement with them, he breaks the agreement. No, no, this is not the thing, Nadavan.
Sorry, you said they have had enough, but I remember vaguely.

I remember Netanyahu when I was 14 and he ran for office. He was hated in Tel Aviv.
He was hated in the Labour Party. He was hated in Meretz.

The discourse or the ideological fights between right and left in the 90s were way more dramatic than today. We fought about the Oslo Accords.
He was the enemy of the peace.

Nowadays, 80% of Israelis agree on 80% of the things.

So how come exactly when the vast majority of debates within the Israeli public ended, that all of a sudden Netanyahu, rather than having a very convenient unity coalition, he actually had to base his policy on Ben Gevir, the former Khana supporter,

maybe not former, and the ultra-Orthodox and Smotovich. And the answer is because they repeatedly said that we are not allowed to sit with someone who is indicted and is charged with bribery.

The answer is, and you know this as a political commentator better than I do, that if and when Netanyahu was given the choice between sitting with the far right and with Ben Vir and sitting with the center, he will always choose the far right.

And the reason is clear, because Netanyahu will never entrust his fate with reasonable and credible people like benny gantz and others only why because if they withdraw from the government he already lost the far right because he wouldn't sit with them nadav in 2009 bengavir was the parliamentary assistant for another kahana supporter michael benari and netanyahu abandoned the alliance with the far-right coalition the founding fathers of bengevir and smootrich party and he sat with ehud barak the leader of the labor Party.

How come? What happened between 2009 and 2013 if it's the same Netanyahu? I return to my original argument. I think it's the best argument.

I think that if any country in the world had a leader, even Ben-Gurion at the time, is the founder of the state, and I hope I don't offend anyone.

probably a greater leader than anyone else that led the country. Even him, at a certain point, his party committed

an act that he deemed as full-fledged mutiny, and he retired very bitter to

Keral. Netanyahu, for the circles of the opposition and parts of the Israeli right wing, right now it's the majority of the Israeli public, it's not necessarily going to be so in the next election.

They've had enough with him.

These people, if you talk with Yarl Lapid, who sat in his government, if you talk with Benny Gantz, who's set in his government, these people don't want, if you said, we talked with Yvette Lieberman, who was the director general of the prime minister's office of Netanyahu and was the CEO of Delikud.

They do not want to partner with him. It's not about a crusade about the man personally.
It's about the voters.

They want to get elected and the voters don't like him because he's been there forever and he represents the other side.

And also because he's responsible for October 7, because he's probably guilty, at least with some of the charges. Let's see what the courts say.
They don't want it anymore.

That's very democratic of them to say, we don't want to sit in a coalition government with you. It has nothing to do with the trial specifically, but the trial is also an argument, and that's fine.

Since it's not a science, so no one knows, I gave my explanation and you gave yours.

I just want to offer another option, and that is that the former ideological left versus right in Israel turned into a debate about Netanyahu.

And in that respect, for Netanyahu, the trial was a problem, for the center-left, it was a tragedy, because it created a vacuum that actually inhaled or emptied the room from another air, from the oxygen of ideology.

Now, when Netanyahu was replaced by Bennett and Lapid, there wasn't a single change in the policy of the government save the fact that Sarah Netanyahu had to change its home address from the prime minister's residence to Gaza 35th Street in Jerusalem.

The center left in Israel consists these days of Lieberman, the former far-right pro-hanging the Arab Arab Knesset members, Naftali Bennett, the former CEO, those are the leaders of the center left.

All they want to do is to actually topple Netanyahu himself. And I think that this trial did not destroy Netanyahu's career.
It destroyed the center left.

So I think that once and for all, not because I'm so worried about the center left, but because I think there is a desperate need for an alternative.

Because these days, Netanyahu can actually offer to give up the judicial reform and no one says a thing in the right wing because it became focused only on Netanyahu.

And it's bad for me as a right-winger who wants a judicial reform. It's bad for me as

a pro-annexation in Judea and Samaria because no one offers an alternative for Netanyahu.

And especially bad for the center left, which is in a ridiculous way led by two settlers, Lieberman and Bennett, who will not offer any alternative. So let's get away with it.

Let's just set the facts straight and leave it and move on. That's all I'm suggesting.
I want to move this conversation to where the politics are likely to play out.

I'll start with you, Dadav, and then go to you, Amit. What do you see happening here politically? What are the implications of this? So, first of all, the question is, what will Herzog do?

There is speculation that Herzog now will basically say, I'm willing to start debating the facts and not debating whether or not Netanyahu will retire.

If this is the case, first of all, it's going to be, as far as the opposition in Israel is concerned, it's going to be a huge scandal.

And I suspect that the type of protests that we have seen before are just going to become more forceful.

If Herzog is going to close this criminal trial without Netanyahu having any end of sight to his career, actually without paying any price, it's not about his career being over or not, paying an actual price, this would be seen as the Israeli state itself caving into Netanyahu.

And that would lead to those circles of opposition, which are not only the center left, because as Amid said, he's right. Bennett and Lieberman are right-wingers.

They are also supported by people who reject Netanyahu. So I guess we'll see a lot of demonstrations towards the election.
Now, I want to say something. If you ask politically, Dan, why now?

Why is it happening politically speaking? Well, Netanyahu has just had a terrible, terrible week because he needed to pitch the law that will give the ultra-Orthodox waiver from the army.

He could do this in two weeks from now. He could have done this a month ago.
But in the recent week, Netanyahu has ordered that this law would be placed to the Knesset.

It's a law that says it's basically caving in to much of the ultra-Orthodox demands. They're pretty happy about it, although they are waving their hands as though they aren't.

It's better than anything that we've seen before in terms of the waiver from serving in the army and if you're looking for something that in the israeli right wing damages the likud including by the way with the settlers communities that have spent more time in reserve service probably than anyone else in the country it's that waiver for the ultra-orthodox for the yeshiabois not to serve in the army so in the same week that he orders the likud people to have this law passed through the Knesset, and we don't know if it has a majority, very damaging in terms terms of his own audience.

What he actually does is he ignites the system with a request for a pardon without admitting anything. Then Amit and me go about it for like 15 minutes now.
And what aren't we talking about?

We're not talking about that waiver. It's a classic Netanyahu maneuver.

I'm not saying he's not looking for the pardon, but the pardon is much more of a super glue to his camp than the waiver for the ultra-Orthodox.

So Amit, I want to get into your political prognosis here, but before I do, just on that specific point from Nadav, do you think the timing of him issuing this request is to deflect from, distract from the Haredi exemption bill that was just unveiled in the Knesset?

No, tactically, yes, of course, but I don't think that the main, I mean, the entire thing came now in order to actually distract us from this highly unpopular bill.

So it was a tactical decision to actually put it forward this Sunday and not next Sunday, let's say, but not from a strategic point of view. This is one thing.

When it comes to the political arena, Netanyahu gained many, many seats from this indictment, but he had the hard times forming coalitions.

In the past, Netanyahu's likeness was smaller, and Netanyahu's coalitions were bigger. It changed.
This is one thing.

And as for the pardon itself, I would say, you know, two days ago, there was a huge scandal because the Dublin municipality tried to actually rename the Chaim Herzog Square or the Chaim Herzog Park in Dublin because he was a Zionist.

Yeah, just as for our listeners who aren't following it, so Chaim Herzog, as we mentioned earlier, former president of Israel, the current president's father was Irish, Irish Jew.

There was a park in Dublin named after him, and the Dublin city council, the city hall, tried to change the name of the park because it's a Zionist park.

So that has been some kerfuffle going on that's been getting a lot of attention. It's actually outrageous.

So what I would, what I try to say is that if Herzog, the son, pardons netanyahu so i think that the family problem with naming squares wouldn't be in dublin but in tel aviv okay in terms of just political process here politics so you think i guess ask each of you to make a prediction What about any either of your views about where Israeli politics is heading going into the next election is changed by this development?

If Netanyahu is pardoned, it won't affect the election, in my opinion. It's more interesting what happens if Herzog refuses or set

which is my prediction by the way that he would say yes but i want you to actually admit the facts at least yes but only if you promise to resign in 2028 i don't know if netaneel doesn't get the pardon he will go to the polls and he'll say, listen, Herzog is now part of the leftist gang.

He feared Kaplan, he feared the left, he feared the Supreme Court. And that's why you have to give me enough votes in order to cancel this trial once and for all.

Okay, Nadav, Herzog's legacy here in terms of in the context of all of this. So I think it's the tragedy of Bougie Herzog that is a man known for his desire to somehow get an agreement, get unity.

It's also his job as the Israeli president that he's now faced with a binary choice, Dan. It's binary.

If he grants a pardon to the prime minister without the prime minister withdrawing from power now, before the next elections.

If Herzog, now this binary choice, gives him a pardon, he'll be immediately cast by half the country, probably more than half the country, as someone who caved into Netanyahu, that was also there, by the way, when Herzog was elected president.

And people will argue that there was a deal, there was a conspiracy here, and Herzog is going to have a really difficult time, okay, going on as the president of Israel, to say the least.

If he won't give a pardon, it will be exactly the same.

Netanyahu will go in a speech then and he will say something like, you know, this president has given pardons to murderers, to rapists, and he has not given a pardon to me.

What does it say about the institution of the president of Israel? What does it say about the system of the witch hunt against me? So it's a win-win.

for Netanyahu towards the election for us to even start discussing this. I don't think it will change anything in terms terms of the results of the elections if he'll receive a pardon.

And I'll say something more than that. I don't think it will change anything related to what Amit said earlier.

If he receives a pardon, of course, because Amit is saying, give him a pardon, close this case, and we can all move on.

If he'll receive a pardon, Amit, and I think you know that, Bennett won't be able to go with him saying, oh, he got a pardon for Herzog.

After Bennett himself said today, no, he needs to retire from public life. Lapid said he needs to retire from public life.
Lieberman said it's actually entrenching them in their positions.

I think what's much more important then is how we're moving away from discussing October 7, responsibility for October 7 of the prime minister and the waiver to the ultra-Orthodox.

We're moving towards the trial. And we're moving towards the criminal issue.
And that's a benefit for Bibi. In that regard, Amit is absolutely right.

By the way, the reason why Bennett won't be able to say it is exactly what Perez once said.

Shimon Perez once said that you can make an omelette out of an egg, but you can't make an egg out of an omelette. Sometimes the process is, I mean, it's irreversible.

Okay, so

I want to just say, obviously, this is not the last time we'll be digging into this conversation. I want to thank you both.

I also, this is the first time we've been together on a podcast recording, Amit, since your family expanded. So Mazotov, on the birth of your baby boy.
Thank you so much.

We don't have a name yet, right? No, the name is only only for the insiders. Only for the insiders.
Only for the,

you know, Amit. Alana and I have been kicking around this idea for promoting people giving the Inside Call Me Back subscription as a Hanukkah gift.
You can gift a subscription to other people.

And we're trying to think of how to explain the benefits of Inside Call me Back. And I just realized you get a preview.
You can vote on the name because I have no idea. I don't make the decisions.

I don't take the decision. You take a vote.

Okay, and I want to say this scene right near, for those of you who can see, is Amit's daughter sitting on his lap while he's trying to have a conversation about, you know,

the legacy of Buji Herzog and the future of Israeli politics and arguing with Nadav. This is all

a quintessential Israeli scene. It's like the kids are welcome everywhere.
It reminds me of the story of my sister, who lives in Jerusalem, when she was the head of the AIPAC office in Jerusalem.

This is like 20 plus years ago. She was out with her daughter shoe shopping.

And Wiseglass, who was Sharon's chief advisor, Duby Wiseglass, called her and said, We need to see you. The prime minister needs to see you.
And she says, I'm out shopping for shoes with my daughter.

And he says, It's fine. This is Israel.
Bring your daughter.

So my sister brought her daughter to the prime minister's office, and they put the baby in the corner, the kid in the corner, and they sat there and had a meeting.

It's okay because Sharon made his son a Knesset member. So I guess he felt quite convenient with bringing

the daughters and sons to

okay. All right.
Amit, Nadav, thank you for this, and thank you for the special cameo from your daughter and um, and Mazotov. Thank you so much.
Eliana, Tagidi Shalom, Tagidi, bye-bye. Bye-bye.

That's our show for today. If you value the Call Me Back podcast and you want to support our mission, please subscribe to our weekly members-only show, Inside Call Me Back.

Inside Call Me Back is where Nadav Ayal, Amit Segel, and I respond to challenging questions from listeners and have the conversations that typically occur after the cameras stop rolling.

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