Netanyahu, Danon to face off at Supreme Court today
Herzog sends PM legal threat over vacant committee head
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s and Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon’s lawyers will go head to head at the Supreme Court Monday in their dispute over the right to convene the Likud’s institutions. Netanyahu appealed to the court on Thursday, asking it to overturn a Tel Aviv District Court decision to enable the Likud’s institutions to take key powers away from him and give them to the head of the central committee, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon. If the Supreme Court does not overturn the decision, Danon will be able to convene the central committee next month for votes on key issues Netanyahu opposes, including opposing territorial concessions and preventing a merger with Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party. Netanyahu’s attorneys may also have to go to the court on Tuesday to face off against lawyers presenting Labor MKs Isaac Herzog, Eitan Cabel, and Nachman Shai over the continuing vacancy at the helm of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Attorneys representing the Labor MKs sent a letter Sunday to Netanyahu, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, and Knesset House Committee chairman Tzachi Hanegbi warning of a lawsuit if the committee chairmanship is not filled. Herzog gave Netanyahu a deadline of Sunday last week. On Sunday, he extended it to Tuesday. The committee has been without a chairman since Liberman was restored as foreign minister in November. Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid have been fighting over Liberman’s successor in the key post. “If you refrain from appointing a permanent chairman for the committee, my clients, who are very concerned about the proper functioning of the Knesset, especially the committee, will have no choice but to turn to the Supreme Court to obtain an injunction requiring you to take immediate action to appoint a chairman,” attorneys Shimi Baron and Eran Marienberg wrote. “This would be necessary to maintain the proper functioning of the committee as part of the obligatory democratic balance.”