Israel's under-fire Prime Minister strongly defended his reforms and accused the country's Supreme Court of becoming too 'powerful' in a world exclusive interview for Piers Morgan Uncensored, which airs on Sky News Australia on Tuesday.
As hundreds of thousands of Israelis marched again through the streets of major cities like Tel Aviv, and numerous world leaders including President Biden warned him not to imperil democracy, Netanyahu accused Israel’s Supreme Court of becoming “too powerful” and “nullifying” government decisions with “unacceptable” interventions.
He added: “There’s a lot of tension right now and I wish it wasn’t so, but I’m quite confident that we’ll get over this difficulty, because you have to reform things that get ossified. Right now, you have a situation where 15 unelected members of the supreme court effectively govern Israel. They can decide things that affect our military, our economy, our foreign relations, our battle with terrorism, is that right? Is that democratic? No, it’s not democratic. You want to correct it.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial overhaul plan has caused tensions in the country. Picture: AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg In an alarming escalation of the crisis, reservist fighter pilots refused to attend a training exercise and were joined by around 650 members of the Israeli Defense Force’s special forces command and military intelligence cyberwarfare units.Now even members of his own coalition government have broken ranks to slam it.
And in a sign that he is preparing to water down the bill, Netanyahu made a renewed call to his opponents to negotiate and told me: “There is one consideration that the critics and the opponents of the judicial reform raise, and I think it’s a valid concern and that is you want to go from one extreme to the center. You don’t want the pendulum to swing to the other side where the Knesset, our Parliament, can nullify any decision of the Supreme Court and I think that requires a balance.
Smotrich is now in charge of the civil administration of the occupied West Bank and sparked outrage last week by calling for the Palestinian town of Huwara to be “wiped out” by the State of Israel, after two Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinians.
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