Gabbay slams MKs for weighing in on presidential pardons

Labor chairman Avi Gabbay rebukes Likud politicians for condemning President Reuven Rivlin’s decision not to pardon IDF soldier Elor Azaria, who is serving time for manslaughter in the 2016 Hebron shooting of an incapacitated Palestinian stabber, a day earlier.

“Politicians are not supposed to deal with pardons, this is the job of the legal system, not the political system,” says Gabbay at the start of the weekly Zionist Union meeting. “We hear the embarrassing attacks by politicians in Likud [against the president] and the prime minister is silent because this is the political culture that he is instilling.”

Speaking just before Gabbay, Zionist Union faction chairman Yoel Hasson thanks Rivlin for his “brave decision” to commute the sentence of Yonatan Heilo, who was serving time for killing his rapist.

“The president did the right and moral thing,” says Hasson.