Those who arrived at the Knesset this week for the opening of its winter session saw just how far away they were from routine. The welcome ceremony, the refreshments, and the ceremonies were dropped and replaced by a dry agenda that included short speeches from the usual line-up. No one was in the mood for events, and certainly not a celebration.
What didn't change was the speech from President Reuven Rivlin, who once again tried to use lofty words to redefine the current situation in Israel and gloss over the lack of unity and solidarity while at the same time – as usual – adopting the prevailing media narrative. It was the same perfect routine he's been performing since he became president.
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Behind President Rivlin's words there was no shred of anything pragmatic, no work plan or solution to the problems he raised and about which he has been preaching for years. The president doesn't have much legal authority, so speeches and ceremonies are an integral part of the job. But the president of Israel does have one applicable authority. Authority he could, and still can, use to turn his words into deeds and his thoughts into actions – the right to issue pardons.
Only recently, Rivlin proved that he is capable of using that authority appropriately when he decided to pardon debtors who were on the verge of financial collapse because of the COVID crisis. It was a welcome move. But for some reason, Rivlin has refrained from using that authority in any national context.
He missed the first opportunity to do so in the case of Elor Azaria, the IDF soldier who was tried and sentenced for manslaughter after he shot and killed a Palestinian terrorist who was immobilized on the ground. Even as Rivlin watched the people tearing themselves in two over the outstanding soldier who slipped up, and could have put an end to the show trial waged against Azaria in an IDF court, the media, and in politics, Rivlin was silent and did not intervene. The courage that Chaim Herzog showed in pardoning those involved in the Bus 300 affair, despite the criticism he took, is completely absent in the current president. There is no doubt that Rivlin and Herzog are not cut from the same cloth. One took action. The other fled.
Now Rivlin is facing another decision, a much more fateful one. He is watching the people being ripped apart, and doing nothing. The trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all its ramifications have been splitting Israeli society for years. We are seeing undecided elections and an enormous lack of faith in both the political and legal systems. We are seeing law enforcement turn on the government and run amok to indict a prime minister, hoping to oust him, while half the people are cheering them on because their desire to see Netanyahu out of power is being fulfilled.
And all this is happening as a terrible epidemic rages and there is no one to bring this awful chapter, possibly the worst in the country's history, to a close.
President Rivlin prefers to make speeches, scold and chide, rather than using his position to save Israel from the psychotic limbo in which it is stuck. He can pardon Netanyahu, effective immediately, and we can hold an election that would finally establish the government that the people want, without the involvement of the legal system or rogue law enforcement.
Some have proposed, and many think that the proposal has the support of the attorney general, that Netanyahu be pardoned in exchange for stepping down. But a move like that would only step up the feeling that he is being persecuted and widen the societal divide. When one side feels his honor is being trampled, it would do more harm than good. It would be an attack on democracy, too. The people elect a prime minister, and a few functionaries in the Justice Ministry won't make the decision for them. This is why after a pardon, the ball must pass back to the people. Both sides will get their chance to take over in the only way it can happen in a democratic country: at the polls. And may the best man win.
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