Finance Minister and Religious Zionism party chairman Bezalel Smotrich said that "Religious Zionism's commitment to reforming the judicial system will continue substantively regardless of Netanyahu's pardon." According to him, "Separate from the necessary reform in the law enforcement system, it's clear to any reasonable person that Netanyahu has been persecuted for years by a corrupt judicial system that fabricated political cases against him, and therefore I call on the president to grant the pardon request."