Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) on Wednesday posted on her Facebook page a copy of the letter he sent earlier in the day to President Reuven Rivlin, pleading for a pardon for Private Elor Azaria (demoted from Sergeant on Tuesday).
Noting that the Azaria incident has long since become a national story, overshadowing the soldier’s private concerns, Hotovely suggested he had been thrown into “a unique episode and acted under the harsh conditions of a cruel wave of terror, with an entire public campaign being conducted on his back,” a campaign, she argued, “was bigger than the dimensions of the event over which he was convicted.”
Hotovely stressed the need to reunify the IDF and restore the legitimacy of IDF soldiers who are facing terrorism every day. She cited calls both on the right and on the left to pardon the young soldier, who faced such a difficult situation for the first time in his life.
The Deputy Minister also recalled the Line 300 episode, following which then President Chaim Herzog pardoned several GSS agents who executed two Arab terrorists who were in their custody.