Herzog calls on Netanyahu to accept his proposal for plea bargain talks

President says he believes ‘understandings and agreements’ are the only way to settle the issue, after attorney general agrees to talks but premier’s legal team keeps mum

President Isaac Herzog called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal team on Wednesday to join talks over a potential plea bargain in the premier’s corruption trial.

Last month, Herzog said he would not currently grant Netanyahu’s request for a pardon regarding the corruption charges for which he is on trial, and instead proposed that he mediate negotiations over a plea deal between Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and the prime minister’s lawyers.

The attorney general agreed to enter such discussions without preconditions, but Netanyahu’s legal team has not yet responded to the proposal.

Speaking at the President’s Conference for a Shared Israeli Future on Wednesday, Herzog again called for both sides to come to the negotiating table, but did not mention Netanyahu by name or clarify that it was his team, not the attorney general’s, which was holding up the process.

“Once one side has said it is willing to come into the room, I also expect the other side to come into the room,” the president said.

He explained that the reason he had called for dialogue and to reach “an arrangement” over Netanyahu’s years-long trial was because he believed that it was the only correct way to settle the issue without further dividing the Israeli public.

“I truly believe that in these weighty issues, which scorch the heart of Israeli society and divide it, the right path, as much as possible, is to reach understandings and agreements, and I believe in understandings and agreements,” he told the conference.

Netanyahu’s trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, which began in 2020, has divided the country along political lines.

The prime minister formally requested a pardon in November, arguing that the trial was tearing the country apart and distracting him from his duties. But he did not admit guilt, raising the question of whether he could receive a pardon while his trial was still ongoing.

Herzog ultimately decided that he would not, for the time being, grant Netanyahu a pardon, despite immense pressure from US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly waded into the internal Israeli matter and has lashed out at Herzog over it, calling him “weak and pathetic.”

Netanyahu’s supporters have echoed Trump’s request, insisting on the prime minister’s innocence and saying the trial is dividing the country. Netanyahu’s opponents, meanwhile, have urged the president not to grant the premier clemency unless he admits guilt and resigns from political life.

Netanyahu is the first sitting prime minister to go on trial. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing and has claimed that the cases against him — which concern allegations that he traded political favors for gifts and favorable press coverage — are a witch hunt and a political coup attempt fabricated by his opponents.

Should he manage to bring both sides to the negotiating table, Herzog will face no small challenge, as they will place Netanyahu’s legal team across the table from Baharav-Miara, a bitter ideological foe of Netanyahu’s government.

The premier’s coalition has repeatedly sought to fire Baharav-Miara, who has blocked or refused to defend several of its legislative initiatives because, she says, they contravene the law. Ministers have called on the government to disregard her authority.

Herzog, however, believes the talks have a chance of success, according to a New York Times report last month, which said he feels the “legal landscape leaves room for creativity and innovation.”