Netanyahu’s rivals ask court to block ‘power grab’
JERUSALEM: Citing a threat to Israeli democracy, opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Supreme Court on Sunday to block what they described as a power grab by the caretaker government under the guise of combating the coronavirus epidemic.
The petitioners asked the court to restore the full powers of parliament, which has been largely blocked from functioning by a Netanyahu ally, Yuli Edelstein, the speaker. He has claimed public health concerns.
A new parliament was sworn in last week, but among the key votes Mr Edelstein has prevented is one on replacing him as speaker.
The paralysis in parliament has only compounded the country’s political deadlock and chaos in the wake of three inconclusive elections in the past 12 months.
Mr Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has every interest in remaining in power, if only to gain leverage in negotiating a plea deal after being indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The coronavirus outbreak has provided him with a new opportunity to try to maintain his grip on power.
Though his right-wing-religious alliance narrowly lost this month’s election, the prime minister is reluctant to give up his bloc’s control of parliament. Mr Netanyahu has been trying to push his main rival, Benny Gantz, of the centrist Blue and White party, to join him in an emergency unity government that might prevent a fourth election.
But Likud officials said on Sunday that ousting Mr Edelstein would eliminate any chance of a unity government.
Mr Gantz’s party, one of the petitioners to the Supreme Court, responded: “The ultimatum, while harming our democracy, makes evident that Netanyahu would like to drag this country into a fourth round of elections, even in the throes of a crisis that demands that we all act on behalf of the people, both in government and in parliament.”
Mr Netanyahu, has resorted to emergency regulations to usher in increasingly draconian measures to combat the spread of the virus. Those included authorising the Shin Bet internal security agency to use cellphone data to track citizens, without any parliamentary oversight.
Avichai Mandelblit, the attorney general and a Netanyahu appointee, aired his own concerns in a statement to the court, emphasizing the “vital necessity of enabling the existence of parliamentary oversight of the work of the government, particularly at this time”.
The justice minister, who is also a Netanyahu loyalist, also used emergency ordinances to restrict court activities, leading to the postponement of Mr Netanyahu’s trial on corruption charges for more than two months. There are growing accusations that the government is exploiting the coronavirus epidemic to sow panic and maintain power.
Mr Netanyahu has denounced the criticism, accusing his opponents of engaging in petty politics while he is working to save lives and stop the virus from ravaging the country. He compared himself to the captain of the Titanic in a television interview on Saturday, saying that he was steering between icebergs.