Netanyahu and the Imprisoner's Dilemma

Does pardoning Netanyahu for corruption make the end of the war in Gaza more likely?

Screenshot via YouTube / PM of Israel’s Office

The prisoner’s dilemma is the classic game theory problem where you have two gang members isolated, and both are given the chance to cooperate with the police. If one testifies against the other, the one who testifies gets let off, whereas if both testify against each other or both refuse to testify, they also both go to prison, but in the latter case receive a lighter sentence. It’s meant to test how rational actors behave in a situation of isolation but potential mutual benefit.

President Trump has called for the trial of Prime Minister Netanyahu to be cancelled or a pardon issued, in what appears to many like another instance of ludicrous subservience to the Likud line typical of Republicans, which is already destroying Trump’s movement at this point. Since the trial is in progress, the former can’t happen, but under Israel’s basic laws, the pardon power rests with President Herzog, and he could in theory issue one for the corruption charges. We have in this instance, not a prisoner’s dilemma, but an imprisoner’s one.

Whether or not Netanyahu is pardoned for the corruption charges, he remains a wanted war criminal in most of the world. That’s one of the reasons President Herzog should perhaps not do it, the head of state extending this clemency to the head of government has the potential, in the eyes of many, to extend the impunity with which Israel has conducted this barbaric and lawless war.

A pardon would also send the wrong message to the better political factions in Israel, who have tried to keep things from spiraling out of control, whereas Netanyahu has been reckless and pushed the United States toward escalation. But, from the perspective of the United States, there might be a case for it if it makes an end to the war in Gaza more likely. Does it?

If I had to guess, probably not. Netanyahu’s need to ensure his political survival is certainly a factor in why this brutal ethnic cleansing has continued far longer than it should, but if he no longer needed to worry about prison afterward, it’s not clear his coalition would permit a withdrawal anyway.

The timing of a pardon makes this tricky. If he’s pardoned and then decides to carry on with the war—which doesn’t even really have a fig leaf of returning the hostages at this point because nearly all of them are probably dead—he will continue to be defying Trump and remain captive to his far-right coalition allies. If President Herzog promises a pardon will be obtained sometime after an end to the war is negotiated, that could cause his coalition to collapse, many of whom have joined it on the assumption that Israel would take possession of Gaza.

One interesting idea might be for him to simply flee the country and avoid prison once the U.S. has agreed to a solution in Gaza the administration finds agreeable—this might be worth permitting if it ends the war. It’s probably only the IDF, which doesn’t want a prolonged occupation of Gaza, that can force Netanyahu’s coalition to accept a deal like the one the White House has floated of an Arab trusteeship.

Netanyahu likely wouldn’t be able to return, but he could credibly claim to have accomplished his life’s work of getting to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and live out the rest of his days in a place he wouldn’t be likely to be arrested, like Miami.

That wouldn’t be entirely inappropriate, Netanyahu is a creature of the diaspora at least as much as Israel itself, and most of the money supporting him comes from outside the country. I would hate to read too closely into Trump’s Truth Social statements, but this actually seems like the option Trump is leaving open. He says the prime minister “has done so much for the State,” and that the U.S. will save Netanyahu just as the U.S. saved Israel. It would be a fitting end for King Bibi—America is nothing if not a land of discrowned kings.