Israel's president races to reach judiciary accord before parliament vote
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 The bill in the spotlight on Monday would limit the Supreme Court's ability to void
00:03 government decisions that it deems unreasonable.
00:06 For more on this, we'll cross now to our Jerusalem correspondent standing by, Iris
00:10 Mackler.
00:11 Hi, Iris.
00:12 So there is discussion of a compromise between the ruling coalition and opposition parties.
00:17 What could that look like?
00:21 The compromise has been proposed by Israel's president.
00:24 He got off the plane from Washington, his trip there, and began this negotiation.
00:31 And it looks like a restriction, restricting this particular bill slightly so it's not
00:37 as extreme, and then calling a halt to any further bills in this judicial reform program
00:43 so that negotiations can take place on a broad reform package that everyone will agree to.
00:51 You know, if we'd spoken three hours ago, I would have said to you 60/40 in favor of
00:58 this compromise going through.
01:00 Now I'm a bit less enthusiastic about those numbers because I've just heard people in
01:09 the Knesset speaking, and I'm not sure that even this moderate reform will go through,
01:15 let alone the effect on everybody who's still out here in the streets.
01:21 So how significant is it then that Benjamin Netanyahu was absent for part of all of this?
01:29 It was hugely significant because the prime minister's health became another issue.
01:34 He traditionally leaves things to the very last minute, sometimes beyond the last minute.
01:39 But in those last 48 hours, he was out of action.
01:43 He was in hospital having an operation, and then anyone who wanted to conduct a negotiation
01:47 had to come to his hospital bed.
01:49 That's how it happened.
01:50 And then he had to rest.
01:52 So basically I have heard one analysis saying he's in office but not in power.
01:58 And if that's right, the people who are actually making the decisions are the hardliners, including
02:02 the justice minister, who wants this to go ahead at any price.
02:06 It's his initiative.
02:08 And that's the situation that Israel is in at the moment.
02:12 A slightly absent prime minister, allowed out of hospital just in time to get to the
02:16 parliament to vote, but told that he has to rest for the next 48 hours.
02:21 And meanwhile, Iris, more protests, of course, are planned for this Monday, reflecting just
02:26 how divided the country remains.
02:31 That's right.
02:32 This is a divided country.
02:33 Israel's former president, Reuben Rivlin, spoke last night to 100,000 people gathered
02:38 right here.
02:40 And he said he was joining them to save the country.
02:44 And he warned that this was a real danger to Israel's democracy, perhaps the largest
02:48 danger it's faced.
02:50 And he called on the prime minister to halt this in order to stop these divisions.
02:56 And what we saw last night was dueling protests, one in Tel Aviv, mostly from settlers bussed
03:03 in from the occupied West Bank, and the one here.
03:06 So there were those two opposing protests.
03:11 And this morning we saw people sitting down outside the parliament and police, you know,
03:17 water cannon out.
03:19 It's almost surreal to see what's going on here today, right up to, right down to the
03:25 wire, in fact.
03:26 Iris Mackler, we'll be keeping an eye on this here on France 24, of course.
03:29 In the meantime, thank you very much for that update.
03:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]