MK Rothman: Trump shouldn’t intervene in Israeli justice — but PM’s trial should be canceled

By Sam Sokol 26 June 2025, 10:16 am

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman leads a vote during a Constitution, Law and Justice Committee meeting at the Knesset, on March 26, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

US President Donald Trump’s call to end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing criminal trial is inappropriate even if he is correct in his position against it, Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee chairman Simcha Rothman declares in a lengthy post on X.

“The Israeli judicial system has many flaws, and the Netanyahu trial is perhaps an example of the accumulation of many such flaws,” Rothman writes, citing what he says are “fabricated cases, the prosecution’s and judges’ disconnection from reality in continuing the trial during wartime, preoccupation with trivialities, and more.

“And yet, it is not the role of the president of the United States to intervene in legal proceedings in the State of Israel. The independence of the State of Israel and the independence of its judicial system are values important to us all, including Benjamin Netanyahu,” writes the Religious Zionism MK, one of the moving forces behind the coalition’s judicial overhaul agenda.

But, he adds, while it is not the US president’s place to intervene, Israel’s own president should do so. The president has the power to pardon offenders (and commute sentences).

Rothman calls on President Isaac Herzog to “stop this foolish saga.”

“If he does not do so, the Knesset can and should do it,” Rothman asserts, appealing to Herzog to “give this country justice already.”

While the Knesset does not have the authority to cancel the prime minister’s trial, pro-Netanyahu lawmakers have threatened to legislate the removal of the crime of fraud and breach of trust from the criminal code. In the highly unlikely event that the Knesset were to do so — and assuming such legislation would apply retroactively to ongoing cases — Netanyahu would only be left facing the charge of bribery in Case 4000.