Following rumors on Thursday evening that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was halting his government’s plan for judicial reform due to fears of IDF reservist refusals harming Israel’s security, the prime minister held a press conference at about 9 p.m.
The prime minister spoke after a meeting with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who had planned on publicly calling for the suspension of the judicial reform, but changed his mind at the last minute, instead meeting with Netanyahu. There were rumors that Gallant had threatened to quit if the reform was not suspended. Netanyahu also met with Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.
The rumors caused many Likud MKs to threaten to quit the government if the judicial reform was halted.
Netanyahu clarified that he does not plan to stop the reform and the advancement of the law to change the composition of the Committee for the Selection of Judges will continue as planned next week but he will involve himself in attempts to reach a compromise on other laws. It should be noted that the law on the selection of judges has already been moderated by the coalition.
“Until today, my hands were tied,” Netanyahu said, referring to the Attorney-General’s decision banning the prime minister from dealing with the judicial reform due to an alleged “conflict of interest’ in light of his legal indictments. However, on Thursday, the Knesset passed the Incapacitation Law, which prevents the Attorney-General from declaring a prime minister as “incapacitated” [unfit for office] in its second and third readings, and Netanyahu apparently intends to become actively involved now in negotiations with the opposition for a compromise on the reform.
“That’s it, I’m getting involved – for the sake of the people and the State,” Netanyahu said. “I will do whatever I can to reach a solution and calm the spirits. We are brothers.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid slammed Netanyahu’s speech, claiming that the prime minister is being controlled by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, one of the architects of the judicial reform plan. “It’s Netanyahu’s voice but the hands are Levin’s hands,” Lapid said.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
Please edit your headlines and avoid ridiculous typos like this one, his hands are “tied”, not “tired”. I wish you could elevate this site beyond amateur hour.
This anti Bibi garbage sounds and looks just like the anti-Trump garbage in New York.
A pure witch hunt.
With the demo-craps in office The United States has become a fourth world power, not even a third world power.
May Hashem help us all.
“I wish you could elevate this site beyond amateur hour…”
Given the speed with which breaking news is posted and the economic realities of managing a free social website without a firewall, YWN is one of the most professional websites available to the tzibur. My biggest complaint are the periodically biased selection of stock photos to run with some stories but overall most of us have no complaints with the occasional misspellings which are quickly corrected.
Likud Government’s pretty stupid. All they have to do was say: They’re copying the United States democracy where the Federeal Judiciary (Lower curcuits & Supreme Court) does not make up the laws but rather only interprets their scope of breach & enforcement. That would’ve been the end of the story.
Since the US is the poster child for world democracy, no one would have any claim whatsoever – certainly not the the idiots in the Biden Administration and State Department.
Leave it to Bibi the “smart idiot” to screw everything up again. Iran, Pfizer Guinie pigs & draconian economy killing response, and now this. The other recent PMs are even worse “plain idiots”.
His basic problem is that the people opposed to the reform, who are definitely rich bigots, do control the economy. They are the “Startup Nation” that has moved Israel (at least in urban upper classes) to “first world” rather than “third world” (as the whole country was 60 years ago, as arguably still is for most Chareidim and non-Ashkenazim). Making Israel into a democracy will cripple its economy, since the elite are definitely anti-democratic (and anti-religious, and anti-Sefardi, and a lot of other things).