Ambassador Mike Huckabee’s presence on Wednesday at the trial of Prime Minister Netanyahu suggests that he has awakened to the “American disease.” That’s what we have taken to calling the tendency to solve in the courtroom matters that are best left to the political sphere. It was no doubt a shocking sight to many to see Washington’s envoy stride into a Tel Aviv courtroom to support the leader of the Jewish state. But the American disease is a real issue.

Mr. Huckabee, our Benny Avni reports, explained after appearing in court that President Trump “has not intervened in the proceedings or in the outcome. He recognizes that it has to go its own way. But it’s a personal thing for him. He considers the prime minister a friend.” The 47th president has called for Mr. Netanyahu to be pardoned for allegations of fraud and breach of trust. Mr. Trump likely wants to protect Mr. Netanyahu’s war leadership.

Wednesday’s hearing zoomed in on ties with a Hollywood mogul, Arnon Milchan. Years ago Mr. Netanyahu’s wife Sara asked Mr. Milchan to help obtain a Bugs Bunny doll for their son. The Israelis are calling this the “Bugs Bunny Affair,” and Mr. Huckabee brought a Bugs Bunny doll to court to mark the Loony Tunes nature of the proceedings. One source tells Mr. Avni that Mr. Huckabee’s presence was right out of “The Godfather Part II.”

Or was Mr. Huckabee driven to attend by another long-running saga — America’s experience with “lawfare”? That plague has been especially acute in respect of Mr. Trump. In the context of the case against Marine Le Pen in France we wrote that “efforts to jail Mr. Trump over what struck many as picayune accusations — like fudging corporate records to cover over hush money payments to an adult film actress — helped fuel the president’s comeback.”

We first wrote about the American disease in relation to Mr. Netanyahu as far back as 2019, when Mr. Netanyahu was first indicted across three cases. We called it then — long before Mr. Trump faced his four criminal cases —“an infection of the democratic process by criminal law.” The presence of charges, we reckoned, “disorients those involved, victim and pursuer, causing them to lose perspective.”

Mr. Avni reasons that Mr. Huckabee’s appearance “could very well strengthen the prosecution’s resolve to see the trial through” or “turn the public against the idea of foreign intervention in the country’s judicial process.” Real life soon intruded when Mr. Netanyahu was called away to deal with a burgeoning crisis in Syria, adding to the farce of keeping a premier in court over Bugs Bunny — an American disease if there ever was one — when war is raging.  

The better part of valor for Israel would be to drop or delay the trials against Mr. Netanyahu to focus on winning the war. Whatever one can say about the son of Ben-Zion Netanyahu and the brother of Jonathan, he has been driving back and defeating enemies on five fronts. What a tragedy it would be were he brought down over penny-ante cases that are symbolized by a Bugs Bunny doll. Ambassador Huckabee knew just what he was doing.