It drew an ecstatic burst of applause from the Israeli prime minister\u2019s Likud lawmakers and other supporters in the Knesset, who giddily chanted Netanyahu\u2019s nickname: \u201cBibi! Bibi!\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump added: \u201cCigars and Champagne, who the hell cares about that? Alright, enough controversy for the day, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s that controversial.\u201d<\/p>\n
The remarks underscored Trump\u2019s willingness to wade into Israel\u2019s internal affairs \u2014 and to do so in characteristically provocative and undiplomatic fashion to help out an ally. <\/p>\n
And, yes, it absolutely would prove controversial in Israel if Herzog attempted to do any such thing\u00a0\u2014 and Trump\u2019s public appeal struck more traditionally minded Israelis as shocking.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first time Trump has called for Netanyahu to be pardoned ahead of a trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, including receiving extravagant gifts, among them cigars and Champagne. The Israeli prime minister was indicted in 2019, with some of the investigations that gave rise to the charges going back to 2015.<\/p>\n
The case has been delayed time and again because of legal maneuvers by Netanyahu and his lawyers, as well as because of security and diplomatic concerns during the Gaza War. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It drew an ecstatic burst of applause from the Israeli prime minister\u2019s Likud lawmakers and other supporters in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":301628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[372,17628,69,49970,99,373,31815,3097,50,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-301627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","9":"tag-corruption","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-isaac-herzog","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-israel-hamas-war","14":"tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","15":"tag-middle-east","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115370467369014595","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}