By Donald H. Harrison in San Diego
INTERNATIONAL
Ha’aretz reports that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu filed a 107-page petition on Sunday with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog asking that he be pardoned in three long-running cases charging him with corruption.
Normally, pardons come after convictions but Netanyahu did not admit guilt. Instead, he said it would help to unify Israelis who have become increasingly polarized.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump had brought up the subject of pardoning Netanyahu two weeks earlier in a letter to Herzog.
The Times of Israel quoted an interview with Micah Tettman, a former defense attorney for Netanyahu, on Channel 12, in which the lawyer said that a confession of guilt is required by law before a pardon can be granted.
Anti-Netanyahu demonstrators picketed on Sunday outside Herzog’s home in Tel Aviv, demanding that he reject the prime minister’s petition.
Herzog said he would consult with legal experts before discussing his options. He denied rumors that he favored granting the pardon provided that Netanyahu admits guilt and retires from politics.
The website quoted Israel’s former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as being in favor of the pardon, provided that Netanyahu agreed to retire from politics.
The Jerusalem Post quoted sources close to Netanyahu who said he would not consider a deal requiring him to withdraw from politics. “He is planning to run again,” the sources said.
That newspaper reported that sources close to Herzog said the decision whether to pardon the prime minister will take at least two months. Meanwhile the Office of the President put out a press release stating that Herzog has forwarded Netanyahu’s request to the Justice Ministry’s Pardons Department.
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The Times of Israel reports that Richard Shakespeare, Chief Executive of the City Council in Dublin, Ireland, has sent back to a committee the proposal to strip a city park of the name honoring Israel’s 6th President Chaim Herzog, who grew up in Dublin. The proposal had been scheduled to be voted upon by the full City Council on Monday, Dec. 1.
Shakespeare’s decision followed a statement earlier in the day by Ireland’s Prime Minister Micheál Martin that the proposal “should be withdrawn in its entirety.” The Irish P.M. added, “the proposal is a denial of our history and will without any doubt be seen as antisemitic.”
Chaim Herzog’s father, Isaac, was Ireland’s first chief rabbi after it became independent of Britain in 1922. Chaim named his son, Isaac, after his father. The son now serves as Israel’s 11th President.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar stated on Saturday, the day before Martin’s announcement, “Dublin has become the capital of antisemitism in the world.”
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, met in Florida on Sunday with a Ukrainian delegation headed by Rustem Umerov, who replaced the recently resigned Andriy Yermak as that country’s chief negotiator. According to BBC News, Rubio said the talks concerning a Ukrainian-Russian peace deal are aimed at leaving Ukraine “sovereign, independent and prosperous.”
Rubio described the conference as “very productive and useful,” while Umerov characterized them as “productive and successful.”
Congressional Republicans on two Sunday morning news shows gave Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy something to be cheerful about. “You can’t be ‘America First’ and be pro-Russia,” Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio told Face the Nation interviewer Nancy Cordes. “Russia is a self-declared adversary of the United States. It’s building new advanced nuclear weapons that are specifically targeting the United States. It’s constantly attacking the United States with offensive cyber…”
On ABC’s This Week, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska described President Trump’s original 28-point “peace plan” as a “surrender document.” Its provisions included Ukraine giving up more land, a reduction in Ukraine’s armed forces, no foreign troops to be stationed in Ukraine, and a prohibition on Ukraine joining NATO. Following negotiations with a Ukrainian delegation, it “has shifted a little bit back toward the middle,” Bacon said.
“I would like to see the President be a stronger advocate for the free country, the sovereign country of Ukraine (which) wants to be a democracy, wants to be allied with us,” Bacon continued. “(Russian President Vladimir) Putin is the invader, a dictator, he’s murdered all his opponents. …I just don’t see that moral clarity coming from the White House.”
Bacon said he is alarmed by a news reports that people around the White House want to curry favor with Putin because he might grant access to “minerals and natural gas pipelines and things like that.” He declared, “I want to see America, as the leader of the Free World, stand up for what is right, not who can make a buck. I don’t want to see a foreign policy based on greed, I want to see it based on doing the right thing.”
NATIONAL
Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-California) predicts, “(Y)ou can be certain that it will because of women—the work we put into organizing our communities, caring for our neighbors, getting out the vote, and running for office ourselves—when we take back the House in 2026!
In a fundraising appeal, the San Diego Democrat preceded the prediction with an essay on male chauvinism: “Every day, women in every sector and from every background are routinely undermined, overlooked, and ‘put in our place’ by men.
“Men are the default experts, the ones automatically taken seriously, and the ones whose needs are centered – while women are often sidelined, no matter their credentials or life experiences. It’s 2025, and long overdue for this sexism (whether it’s subtle or obvious) to end. Because this is really about power; who has it, who’s been denied it, and who’s been constantly forced to prove themselves and their worth.
“Women aren’t going anywhere, and we’re going to keep fighting back against this bullsh*t. We will take up space, demand respect, and do our jobs – because that’s what we’re here to do.”
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Robert Reich, who served under President Bill Clinton as Labor Secretary, wrote in a Substack column that President Trump is “blaming and scapegoating entire groups of people [Afghanis, immigrants] for the act of one gunman” in the shooting of two National Guardsmen, killing one and severely wounding the other. Reich’s column concluded: “We will not succumb to the ravings of a venomous president who wants us to hate each other.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.