Activists, scholars blast Trump’s call to end Netanyahu trial

Pro-democracy activists, legal scholars, and organizations strongly criticize US President Donald Trump’s call for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal trial to be canceled, with some accusing the prime minister of having actively sought Trump’s intervention.

“Netanyahu sold Israel as a protectorate of Trump in exchange for personal gestures,” alleges key pro-democracy activist Nava Rozolyo.

She accuses Netanyahu of having gotten Trump to “incite against the Supreme Court and the legal system,” and alleges that in return for the prime minister fulfilling Trump’s demands regarding the military campaign against Iran, Trump agreed to “throw out a word about a ‘witch hunt’ against Netanyahu the defendant.”

Rozolyo concludes that the two are in “an alliance of crazy dictators.”

The Democratic Right organization, a liberal right-wing association, expresses concern in light of Trump’s comments that Netanyahu’s legal problems might be influencing Israel’s foreign policy.

“As a society, we must not accept a situation in which diplomatic relations, security decisions, or diplomatic concessions are driven by motives that are not in the best interests of the state, but in the best interests of the individual,” says the organization.

“The basic principle is: the rule of law comes first. Even when it comes to a prime minister.”

And Ronit Levine-Schnur, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Law, says Trump’s comments are reflective of new types of leaders who “present themselves as champions of peace and prosperity, even while distancing themselves from the norms and values of liberal democracy.”

Says Levine-Schnur: “Just as Trump is unable to respect the independence of the American judiciary when it does not align with his unconstitutional ambitions, he likewise fails to grasp the principle of judicial independence in a system where all individuals — regardless of stature — are equal before the law.”