Judicial overhaul talks near blowup after Netanyahu’s coalition postpones crucial vote
‘Netanyahu has lost control,’ said opposition leader Yair Lapid. ‘He’s crushing Israeli democracy’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaves a Likud meeting at the Knesset, on June 14, 2023. Photo by Emil Salman/Haaretz
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. Sign up here to get Haaretz’s free Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox.
Likud politicians decided Wednesday to postpone by a month a controversial vote, leading opposition leaders to declare that the move would lead to the end of compromise talks being held over the judicial overhaul legislation.
The vote threatened to inflame the protest movement and sparked a confrontation between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his coalition.
The Knesset had been scheduled to vote Wednesday to choose the body’s Knesset representatives to the Judicial Appointments Committee.
National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz declared that if the vote Wednesday did not result in the election of Knesset representatives on the committee, his party would withdraw from the talks on the judicial overhaul taking place at the President’s Residence.
“If the coalition thwarts the election to the committee for the selection of judges today, we will no longer sit down for talks,” Gantz said.
Following Likud’s announcement of its intentions to delay the vote, Gantz convened the members of his party’s negotiating team, MKs Hili Trooper and Orit Farkash HaCohen, and attorney Ronan Aviani for discussions.
Former Prime Minister and current opposition leader Yair Lapid blamed Netanyahu, saying he has “lost control and caused the end of the negotiations.” On Twitter, Lapid said Netanyahu “Crushed Israeli democracy, its economy, security and unity, broken his commitment to the president and forced the end of the negotiations.”
National Unity MK Gideon Sa’ar also slammed Netanyahu for capitulating to the will of Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Knesset Constitution Committee chair Simcha Rothman.
“Netanyahu completely caved to the pressure from Levin and Rothman and decided to violate agreements, thwart the selection of the committee for the selection of judges, blow up the negotiations and return to pushing the legislation unilaterally,” Sa’ar tweeted. “The answer: intensify the protests!”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted one of the two slots to go to an opposition MK to avoid blowing up the negotiations over the government’s planned legal overhaul, and lobbied coalition leaders to agree. However, there was entrenched opposition to this move among coalition members and the Likud, who wanted both slots to go to coalition MKs supporting the overhaul.
The decision to postpone the vote also led to a decline in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
The Knesset’s two representatives on the Judicial Appointments Committee are chosen in a secret ballot. As of Tuesday evening, eight coalition MKs had submitted their candidacies, as had one opposition MK – Karine Elharrar of Yesh Atid. Over the course of the day, several coalition members withdrew their candidacy, but others refused to make the move that would allow the coalition to rally around one person.
After a morning meeting of the Likud faction failed to produce agreement, it was decided that the political hot potato would be postponed by a month: on Wednesday, coalition members with the majority would not vote for any candidate.
Another concern is that coalition MKs won’t vote for Elharrar even if Netanyahu orders them to do so. Likud MK Tally Gotliv, for instance, has already said that she will not withdraw her own candidacy and intends to vote for two coalition MKs. Likud MK Nissim Vaturi, who withdrew his own candidacy earlier, has also said he will vote for two coalition MKs.
Though the coalition leaders had no real objection to electing an opposition MK, many demanded something in exchange for this concession – namely, a public commitment from Netanyahu that some of the legal overhaul laws will be enacted during the Knesset’s summer session.
This demand was spearheaded by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who has spoken with Netanyahu repeatedly over the past few days. He wanted Netanyahu to announce that if the negotiations at the President’s Residence don’t produce agreements soon, the coalition will enact some of the overhaul laws on its own. Both Religious Zionism party chairman Bezalel Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit party chairman Itamar Ben-Gvir back this demand.
Negotiators at the President’s Residence have already agreed on most of the details of these two laws, but there are still disagreements on two issues. One is whether or not ministerial appointments should be exempted from the reasonability standard. Exempting them would allow Shas leader Arye Dery to return to the cabinet. President Isaac Herzog included such an exemption in his own compromise proposal.
The other dispute is over whether ministers should be allowed to fire their ministry’s legal adviser and, if so, what the process should be and whether the attorney general should be allowed to prevent the dismissal.
Netanyahu is considering agreeing to the announcement that Levin, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir seek, and that is one of the issues the heads of the coalition parties will discuss at Wednesday’s meeting. But political sources said they doubt he will agree to shackle himself with a clear commitment to enact some of the overhaul laws unilaterally.
Levin’s insistence that some of the laws be enacted this summer stems in part from a key demand made by the opposition in the negotiations – passage of a law that would bar the government for the rest of its term from amending any Basic Laws, and thereby from making any changes in the system of government, unless the amendments enjoy a broad consensus.
If such a law is passed, the opposition has agreed in principle to amend the law on legal advisers and restrict the reasonability standard. Consequently, the demand that Netanyahu commit himself to passing the changes unilaterally would seem to be unnecessary. But Levin vehemently opposes passing the law the opposition seeks.
In private conversations, he has argued that such a law would definitively bury the legal overhaul. Moreover, he doesn’t want to close off the option of unilaterally passing additional overhaul laws. In conversations with other politicians in recent months, he has warned that doing so could lead to the collapse of the government.
The opposition’s demand for this law is also expected to be discussed at Wednesday’s meeting of coalition leaders. Smotrich backs Levin in opposing it, but Netanyahu supports the law, as does his representative in the talks at the President’s Residence, Ron Dermer.
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