The State of Israel was founded not only on sovereignty but on judgment — the ability to balance law with national stability, justice with social cohesion, and legal procedure with the long-term health of democratic institutions. Democracies rely on courts, but they also recognize a difficult truth: occasionally a legal process, legitimate in origin, can evolve into a political crisis that courts themselves are not designed to resolve.

Israel may now be confronting such a moment.

For more than six years, the criminal proceedings against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have continued without resolution. Hearings have stretched across election cycles, witnesses have rotated, legal theories have shifted, and still a verdict appears distant. Whatever one’s views of Netanyahu, the trial has moved beyond a routine prosecution. It has become a defining feature of Israel’s political life, shaping coalition formation, public trust, and the national conversation itself.

This is no longer solely a courtroom matter. It is a constitutional one.

The presidency of Israel exists precisely for circumstances in which legal process and national stability come into tension. The power of clemency was never meant only for ordinary defendants at the conclusion of proceedings. In democratic systems, a pardon functions as a constitutional safety valve — a lawful means by which a nation can conclude a conflict that litigation alone cannot settle. A pardon does not declare innocence; nor does it deny the seriousness of allegations. It recognizes that the continuation of legal proceedings may, at a certain point, damage public confidence more than their conclusion would.

Recent reports that President Donald Trump urged Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to consider clemency have prompted discomfort in some quarters, as though any foreign view automatically constitutes interference. Yet Israel’s own history counsels a more measured perspective.

For decades, Israeli leaders — prime ministers, ministers, diplomats, and presidents — appealed to successive American administrations for clemency on behalf of Jonathan Pollard. These appeals were not regarded in Israel as improper intrusion into American sovereignty but as legitimate moral advocacy between close allies in a case carrying national significance.

Nor was Pollard an isolated episode. At multiple points in its history, Israel has openly sought to persuade American leaders and policymakers on matters it considered vital to its national interest. Such efforts were understood not as violations of American independence but as the natural conduct of allied nations whose security and moral concerns intersect. A request from an ally is not a command; sovereignty remains intact. But it is also not something to be dismissed reflexively.

It is also worth noting that the appeal did not come from an ordinary observer. Whatever one’s opinions of Donald Trump in American domestic politics, his relationship with Israel has been uniquely consequential, reshaping diplomatic alignments and influencing how governments and publics across the West approach Israel and the public expression of antisemitism. His position therefore functions less as pressure than as a signal — an indication of how a significant portion of Israel’s closest ally perceives the continuing trial and its broader effects.

The deeper issue, however, is internal to Israel itself.

No democracy benefits when criminal proceedings against a national leader continue indefinitely. Justice delayed is not only justice delayed for a defendant; it is justice delayed for the public. The case has dominated elections, hardened political camps, and drawn legal institutions into the center of political conflict. Instead of clarifying public trust, the process has itself become one of the principal sources of national division.

The rule of law requires more than prosecution. It requires public confidence that law operates as law rather than as a permanent political arena. When a proceeding extends across years without resolution, citizens inevitably interpret it through political identity. Some see accountability; others see selective enforcement. Neither perception strengthens democratic legitimacy.

Nor has the trial removed Netanyahu from public life. Repeated elections have demonstrated that a substantial portion of Israeli voters does not interpret the proceedings as restoring confidence in governance but as reinforcing political divisions. One need not support Netanyahu to acknowledge a political reality: a legal process intended to settle a national question has instead perpetuated it. When litigation itself becomes a continuing political force, a constitutional mechanism designed to conclude a national impasse becomes not an evasion of democracy but a protection of it.

It is understandable that clemency in such a charged case would be uncomfortable. Netanyahu is not an anonymous defendant but a dominant political figure whose policies sharply divide Israeli society. Precisely for that reason, the decision must stand above personal rivalry and ideological disagreement. The Israeli presidency was designed to rise above faction. Its authority is tested not when it pardons allies, but when it exercises mercy toward those with whom it disagrees.

President Herzog also carries a distinctive legacy. As the grandson of Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, Israel’s first Chief Rabbi, he represents a tradition in which justice and mercy are complementary principles and national unity is a paramount civic value. Exercising clemency in a moment of prolonged internal fracture would not be a judgment about Netanyahu’s political career; it would be an act on behalf of Israeli society.

Democratic history offers precedents. Nations have at times used clemency to close destabilizing chapters — most famously when President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon in order to prevent the United States from remaining trapped in an unending legal and political crisis. The decision was controversial, but its purpose was institutional: to allow the country to move forward.

President Herzog therefore faces a decision not about Benjamin Netanyahu the politician, but about Israel the polity. The question is whether continuing an unresolved trial better serves Israeli democracy than concluding it through a constitutional authority created precisely for extraordinary circumstances.

Sometimes the preservation of institutions requires ending a process rather than prolonging it. Clemency would not weaken Israel’s democracy. It could restore its focus — returning political questions to voters and allowing legal institutions to resume their ordinary role instead of carrying the weight of a national conflict.

The decision would remain entirely Israel’s sovereign choice. Yet the presidency exists for moments when law alone cannot heal division, and when statesmanship must complete what legal procedure cannot.

This may be such a moment.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)