PM, Ben-Gvir agree: Judicial reform legislation to be frozen until summer session

T. Belman. And then what?

Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir reach agreement to freeze judicial reform bills for now to allow for negotiations on the legislation.

Israel National News     Mar 27, 2023, 6:09 PM (GMT+3)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have reached an agreement that the judicial reform legislation will be frozen for the time being and brought up again during the Knesset’s summer session to allow for negotiations on the reforms, the Otzma Yehudit party announced Monday evening.

At the same time, the two agreed that as a step to keep the peace in Israeli cities, the establishment of s National Guard under the auspices of the National Security Ministry will be approved at the next cabinet meeting.

Ben-Gvir said: “I agreed to remove my veto on the postponement of the legislation, in exchange for a commitment from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the legislation will be brought to the Knesset for approval in the next session, if no agreements are reached during the recess.”

The announcement comes as tens of thousands of right-wing Israelis are converging on the Knesset from across the country to demonstrate in favor of the judicial reforms and to demand that the government not freeze the legislation.

Prime Minister Neyanyahu had reportedly planned to give a public address this morning (Monday) announcing the freezing of the judicial reform legislation following the dismissal of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (Likud) and the mass demonstrations which subsequently broke out across the country Sunday night. He decided to hold off on making a public statement after the Religious Zionist party issued a statement demanding the immediate passage of legislation altering the Judicial Selection Committee.

March 28, 2023 | 8 Comments »

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8 Comments / 8 Comments

  1. @Tanna
    The same goes for the time of the Maccabees and the clash between the socialists (Ben Gurion) and the Revisionists (Jabotinsky) culminating in the Altelena massacre.

  2. If one listens really close, you can hear a faint echo from the first century. As Israelis fought amongst themselves, the real enemy storm the gates.

  3. This is disturbing:

    “How an elite Israeli commando built a protest movement to save his country
    Army reservists have spearheaded opposition to the government’s controversial judicial reforms. They may have turned the tide.

    Shielding his eyes from the sun as it reflected on the sand dunes, Eyal Naveh looked out at the hundreds of new recruits gathered at an army base in central Israel. He felt his stomach churn as he looked into the earnest eyes of the 18-year-olds who peered up at him, exhausted by the morning’s training exercises. Naveh, six-foot tall and sturdily built, is a 47-year-old veteran of Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s most prestigious special-forces unit. As part of his reserve duty in late January, he was training a new generation of fighters. Some of these boys, he thought, would become the country’s future leaders, just like Binyamin Netanyahu, the country’s prime minister, who had served in the unit over five decades ago.

    Normally, when instructing recruits, Naveh beams with pride for his country. Yet on that day, he grieved. “What kind of country would they go on to serve?” he thought to himself. During the lunch break, Naveh took a seat with five reservist friends. Newspapers on the table carried disturbing headlines. Netanyahu was pushing ahead with legislative reforms that would give the government unprecedented control over the country’s judiciary, including a greater say in the appointment of the judges and limitations on the Supreme Court’s powers to overturn laws….”

    You need a subscription to read the rest.

    https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/03/27/how-an-elite-israeli-commando-built-a-protest-movement-to-save-his-country

    Banana republic politics when the military is the final arbiter, And far, from being unprecedented, that’s how it was from 1948 to the early 1990s and it’s how every other democracy does it.

  4. @Ted

    “Israelis will learn how far apart the two sides are”

    How when the AG has forbidden the use of funds for that purpose? And, will, the Court and the A/G agree to freeze its lawfare as well. The Court agreed to hear the AG’s petition against Bibi for involving himself in the Judicial Reform, ironically, as it turned out, to give the Left the freeze it had demanded.

    Somehow, I’m reminded of Arafat starting the bloody 5 year Oslo War/Al Aqsa Intifada in 2005 when he was offered the state he said he had wanted, 98 percent of Yesha with 2 percent land swaps and a capital in E. Jerusalem.

    I hope it doesn’t play out like that.

  5. I do not expect a consensus to be worked out.

    Hopefully during the negotiations, Israelis will learn how far apart the two sides are.. The government will then present compromised legislation and pass it. Its position will be stronger as a result. I hope.

    the opposition have been demanding a freeze on the legislation and now they got what they wanted. They will not be able to demand another freeze,

  6. This delay will become a new element of the dreaded established status quou, where the delay is extended and extended and extended, not unlike what has become of the settlement freeze. It is duplicitous in the extreme to believe that this Craven government will find the gravitas to do their duty tomorrow when they cravingly cringed from having done so today.

    So once more the people have voted for the Right only to maintain the policy of the Left.

    As i have noted previously, the desire for the govt and the courts to have some connection to the public whom they are suppose to serve will only grow stronger as the mandate to resolve this matter is ignored.

  7. @clive Could Ben-Gvir have agreed to a postponement to the summer session to gain time to build the new National Guard which will stop the next round of riots inder his direction?