Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a presidential pardon is not a legal anomaly. It is a political confession. It openly acknowledges what many critics have long argued: Israeli politics is no longer organized around governance, policy, or national direction. It is increasingly organized around the personal survival of one man.
Whether the pardon is granted or rejected is almost secondary. The request itself marks a decisive transformation in how power operates in Israel.
The State as a Personal Shield
By seeking clemency while still in office, Netanyahu has crossed a critical democratic line. He is no longer defending himself as a citizen before the law. He is using the authority of the state to escape the authority of the law.
This move reshapes Israeli politics by establishing a new principle: political power can be leveraged to neutralize legal accountability. The prime minister’s office becomes a defensive bunker rather than a public trust. Governance turns into a tool for delay, pressure, and survival.
This is not leadership. It is institutional capture.
Elections Recast as Legal Insurance
Netanyahu’s pardon request clarifies the true function of elections under his rule. They are no longer about public choice. They are about legal immunity through political dominance.
In this framework, losing power is no longer a routine democratic outcome. It becomes an existential threat. Winning is not a mandate to govern; it is a shield against prosecution. This logic poisons democratic competition and pushes politics toward permanent crisis.
Every election becomes a fight not over policy, but over whether the law will apply.
The Rule of Law Becomes Conditional
A democracy cannot survive when the law bends around its most powerful figure. Netanyahu’s request tells Israelis that justice is negotiable, timing is flexible, and consequences are optional for those who control the system long enough. Even without a pardon, the message is devastating. Courts are reduced from final arbiters to obstacles. Legal proceedings are reframed as political harassment. The law loses its authority not through legislation, but through repeated defiance at the top.
This reshapes Israeli politics into a hierarchy where power precedes legality.
Dragging Institutions Into Personal Warfare
The presidency, meant to stand above factional struggle, is now being dragged into Netanyahu’s personal legal battle. Any decision by the president will be seen as political alignment. Neutrality is no longer possible.
This forced politicization weakens one of Israel’s few remaining stabilizing institutions. The same pattern has already been imposed on the judiciary, law enforcement, and civil service. Institutions are not dismantled outright. They are hollowed out and forced to serve personal objectives.
That is how democratic erosion actually happens.
Polarization as a Governing Method
Netanyahu’s pardon request is designed to inflame division. It thrives on a binary worldview: supporters versus enemies, loyalty versus betrayal, leader versus system.
This is not accidental. Polarization is no longer a consequence of political conflict. It is the strategy itself. A divided society cannot hold its leaders accountable. Constant crisis creates permanent mobilization. Permanent mobilization justifies permanent power.
Israeli politics is being reshaped into a battlefield where compromise is weakness and restraint is surrender.
Loyalty Replaces Responsibility
Inside Israel’s political system, loyalty to Netanyahu increasingly outweighs loyalty to law, ethics, or public interest. Ministers, lawmakers, and coalition partners are judged by their willingness to defend the leader, not by their competence or integrity.
This transformation turns political parties into protective networks. The state becomes a shelter. Accountability is replaced by allegiance. Silence becomes survival.
Such a culture does not disappear when one leader leaves. It metastasizes.
A Dangerous Blueprint for the Future
Perhaps the most profound impact of Netanyahu’s move lies in the precedent it sets. Future leaders are watching closely. The lesson is clear: hold power long enough, attack institutions aggressively, frame accountability as persecution, and the system bends.
This is how democracies decay without a coup. Not through sudden collapse, but through normalization of abuse.
A Democracy Rewritten Around One Man
Netanyahu’s pardon request crystallizes a reality that Israel can no longer ignore. Politics has been reoriented away from the public and toward personal survival. Power no longer serves the law. The law serves power.
This is not merely Netanyahu’s crisis. It is Israel’s political crossroads.
If this logic prevails, Israel will not have abandoned democracy formally. It will have emptied it of meaning. And once that happens, restoring accountability will be far harder than preserving it ever was.