Israel’s legal reform crisis talks continue after day of ‘positive spirit’
▶ Netanyahu tells US that Israeli people will decide their future, not ‘friends’ in Washington
Israel’s far-right government and the two main centrist opposition parties held a second day of talks yesterday on controversial judicial reforms that sparked protests and a general strike during the country’s most severe domestic crisis in years.
The talks came after day one meetings “took place in a positive spirit”, President Isaac Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced confidence yesterday that a national consensus about his far-right coalition’s proposed judicial overhaul can be reached.
He rejected calls from US President Joe Biden to “walk away” from the reforms after the American leader on Tuesday urged him to abandon the proposals that would give the Israeli government greater control over appointments made to the country’s Supreme Court. However, the Israeli leader responded on Twitter by saying he did not make decisions based on pressure from Israel’s friends abroad.
“I have known President Biden for over 40 years, and I appreciate his long-standing commitment to Israel,” Mr Netanyahu wrote.
“The alliance between Israel and the United States is unbreakable and always overcomes the occasional disagreements between us.
“My administration is committed to strengthening democracy by restoring the proper balance between the three branches of government, which we are striving to achieve by a broad consensus.
“Israel is a sovereign country, which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.”
Mr Netanyahu delayed the proposals on Monday after hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets across Israel.
The White House initially said in response that Mr Netanyahu should seek a compromise on the reform issue. “Like many strong supporters
of Israel, I’m very concerned,” Mr Biden said on Tuesday. “I’m concerned that they get this straight. They cannot continue down this road.
“Hopefully the Prime Minister will act in a way that he’s going to try to work out some genuine compromise, but that remains to be seen.” National Security Minister Itamar BenGvir said Israel is “not another star on the American flag. We are a democracy and I expect the US President to understand that”.
Scepticism remained high over the negotiations on the judicial overhaul, which would curtail the authority of the Supreme Court and give politicians greater powers over the selection of judges.
Despite the exchange of words with Mr Biden, Mr Netanyahu said that Israel is expected to enter the list of visa-exempt countries for the US some time in September.
“Today we brought important news to the citizens of Israel: as we promised, the legislative requirements for obtaining a visa exemption for the USA have been successfully completed,” he wrote on Twitter yesterday.
The US embassy had no immediate comment on Israel’s place in the US Visa Waiver Programme, Reuters reported.
It said on January 30 that Israel met its requirement of being below the 3 per cent non-immigrant refusal rate – a reference to the number of applicants turned away on grounds of faulty paperwork.
Before Mr Netanyahu’s announcement, his National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said on Twitter that Parliament was due to ratify the last of four bills “that will advance us towards getting the US visa waiver for the citizens of Israel”. That appeared to refer to the Knesset plenum’s approval in final readings yesterday of a law setting up a national immigration database linked with the passenger manifests of the airlines.
Washington has called for greater access to databases in Israel concerning its travellers to the US.
It was not clear whether Israel had met another US condition for the visa waiver – free passage for Palestinian-Americans at its airports and into the occupied West Bank.
Mr Netanyahu that said the Israeli government would, in the coming months, address outstanding requirements, without elaborating.
The Israeli government has said it is well on its way to securing a US visa waiver status for its citizens