Israel’s prime minister on Wednesday rejected the US president’s suggestion to put aside reform of the judicial system, saying Israel makes its own decisions.
This is an unusual divergence between the US and Israel, two allied countries, which the AP said caused friction even after Netanyahu shelved the justice reform proposal following fierce protests in recent days.
Questioned by journalists on Tuesday, Joe Biden said Israel’s prime minister should drop the proposal.
“I hope he goes away [da proposta]said the US head of state.
In the same statement, Biden also sidestepped the suggestion of the US ambassador to Israel to raise the possibility of an official visit by Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House.
“No. Not anytime soon,” the US president said, referring directly to the suggestion of US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides.
Today, Netanyahu replied that Israel is a sovereign state and that “it makes decisions according to the will of its own people and not under outside pressure, even if it is from the best of friends.”
Israel is a sovereign country that makes its decisions based on the will of its people and not pressure from abroad, including from its closest friends.
– Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) March 28, 2023
The Israeli prime minister’s reply to the US president comes the same week Netanyahu announced the suspension of the bill “to avoid civil war.”
Since last week, protests against the government of Israel have increased significantly in the streets of different parts of the country.
“Let’s hope that the prime minister (Netanyahu) acts in such a way that he can try to reach a compromise. But we still have to wait and see,” Biden told reporters during a visit to North Carolina, United States.
Netanyahu and his ultra-nationalist allies announced the new proposal to change the judicial system in January, shortly after the new government took office.
The proposal sparked Israel’s biggest political crisis in recent decades, with various sectors of Israeli society accusing the prime minister of imposing a dictatorship.
In practice, the plan allowed, among other things, Netanyahu, implicated in several corruption cases, alongside other politicians in power, the direct appointment of judges and parliamentary control, with a right-wing majority, over the Supreme Court.
The opposition argues that the legislation would concentrate power in the governing coalition, contrary to the principles of separation of political and judicial powers.
In talks that began today, Netanyahu said he is “striving for consensus with members of the opposition”.
Nevertheless, Opposition leader Yair Lapid said today that Israel is the United States’ biggest ally and charged that “the most radical government in Israel’s history destroyed the alliance in just three months.”
Lapid’s position was spread via a post on the social network Twitter.
Source: DN
