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30-03-2023
JERUSALEM/ WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted angrily to comments by the US president, who urged him to walk away from his controversial judicial reform plans.
“They cannot continue down this road,” Joe Biden told reporters.
Netanyahu later tweeted that Israel would make its own decisions, “not based on pressures from abroad”.
It comes after protests this week brought Israel to a standstill, forcing him to pause the proposals. The protests have intensified since Netanyahu returned to power at the end of last year, leading the most right-wing, nationalist government in Israel’s history and promising to curb the powers of the judiciary.
His plans would give the government full control over the committee which appoints judges and would ultimately strip the Supreme Court of crucial powers to strike down legislation that it saw as effectively unconstitutional.
Netanyahu says they would stop the courts over-reaching their powers and that they were voted for by the public at the last election but most legal scholars say they would effectively destroy the independence of the judiciary, while opposition figures describe them as an attempted “regime coup”.
Tens of thousands of people protested across the country on Sunday and Monday, and the biggest trade union called a general strike, after the prime minister sacked Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for publicly urging a halt to the reforms.
Netanyahu eventually bowed to the pressure and announced on Monday night that he was pausing the judicial changes until the next session of parliament to allow time for dialogue.
Representatives from the governing coalition and the two biggest opposition parties in parliament – Yesh Atid and National Unity – met for the first time at President Isaac Herzog’s residence on Tuesday. Herzog’s office said their discussions on a framework for the talks “took place in a positive spirit”.
The president also met representatives of the opposition United Arab List, Hadash-Taal and Labor parties on Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to North Carolina on Tuesday, Biden urged the coalition to abandon the reforms.
“Like many strong supporters of Israel I’m very concerned, and I’m concerned that they get this straight,” he said.
“Hopefully, the prime minister will act in a way that he can try to work out some genuine compromise, but that remains to be seen.”
The Israeli prime minister, clearly angered, took to Twitter late at night in response, writing: “Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.”
He stressed that his coalition was “committed to strengthening democracy by restoring the proper balance between the three branches of government, which we are striving to achieve via a broad consensus”.
National Unity party leader Benny Gantz said Biden had sent the Israeli government an “urgent wake-up call”.
“Damage to our ties with the US, our closest friend and our most important ally, is a strategic blow,” he tweeted.
Biden said he was not interfering, but he seemed to brim with scepticism when he referred to Netanyahu’s apparent attempts now to reach a compromise over the plans.
Since become prime minister again Netanyahu has yet to receive an invite to Washington, now being seen as a test of whether the White House is happy with him. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
