A ‘last desperate plea’ to free Israel this Passover

Warning of civil war, President Herzog unveiled a plan to overcome Israel’s civil crisis. Netanyahu promptly rejected it.

President Isaac Herzog unveiled his “People’s Framework” proposal to replace the government’s plans to radically overhaul the judicial system, in a prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday.

Herzog urged both sides “not to destroy the country” in a power struggle over the judiciary, but rather seize the opportunity for “a formative constitutional moment.”

He warned that having heard first-hand from hundreds of Israelis in recent weeks their passionate views on the controversy over the coalition’s radical judicial overhaul legislation, “Those who think that a real civil war, with human lives, is a border we won’t cross, have no idea.” In Israel’s 75th year, “the abyss is within touching distance,” he said. “A civil war is a red line. At any price, and by any means, I won’t let it happen.”

Shortly after Herzog published his offer, and before departing on a visit to Berlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected it.

“The things the President proposes were not agreed on by the coalition, and central elements of the proposal he offered just perpetuate the existing situation, and don’t bring the necessary balance between the branches,”  Netanyahu said.

The German trip has been shortened due what the PM's office described as "developments in national security". Netanyahu was met with Israeli protestors and a row of signs saying 'Don't Come Back'. He is scheduled to meet Netanyahu is set to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who are expected to take advantage of the visit to Berlin to publicly criticise both the judicial coup and Israeli policy in the West Bank.

Outside the government, pressure to accept Herzog's plan is strong. Opposition leader Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid congratulated Herzog on his framework and promised to consider it with “respect for his position, the seriousness with which it was written and the values on which it is based.”

The opposition National Unity party, led by Benny Gantz, said it “accepts the President’s framework as one piece” and “as a basis for legislation, instead of the existing dangerous legislative outline” that the coalition is advancing.

Netanyahu’s blanket rejection of the President’s plan caused consternation across Israel, where two thirds of the population oppose the coalition’s plan to weaken judges and increase the power of the Knesset.

'Pull us back from the abyss'

The editor of the Times of Israel, David Horovitz, penned an open letter to Netanyahu.

“This is a plea — a last, long-shot, desperate appeal to your patriotism, to your Zionism, to your concern for your place in history, to your conscience: Stop this madness,” he wrote.

“You know that this country cannot be sustained if it is not democratic. Some of its best brains will not stay here. The economy will tank. Many taxpayers will not tolerate an increasingly discriminatory burden in which, among other things, they are subsidising a fast-growing ultra-Orthodox sector that, under your coalition agreements, will be exempted by law from performing military or national service and educated in large part without the core skills to contribute to the workforce, its young males financially incentivised to study Torah full-time.

“And perhaps most alarming, you know many citizens will not send their children to serve in the army of an Israel that is not a Jewish democratic state,” Horovitz wrote.

There has been widespread opposition to the judicial reform from reservists,   economists,  jurists, academics and media, including Netanyahu’s own bank chiefs and legal advisers present and past; his own appointees at the helm of the security services; international judicial experts and Zionists of the calibre of Irwin Cotler and Alan Dershowitz; and even right-wing philanthropist Miriam Adelson.

“Yes, your coalition will fracture. Speed the day. Who knows? Benny Gantz and enough others might ride to your rescue. Or not,” Horovitz wrote.

“But you’ll begin to reverse the staggering damage you’ve inflicted on Israel in the few short weeks of your appalling coalition … You’ll have started to pull us back from the abyss, to safeguard this Israel that simply must continue to fulfill its core purpose as the Jews’ national homeland, as a democratic beacon fully capable of defending itself, and that can only do so in something close to internal harmony.

“And we Israelites will still be a free people this Passover.”

READ MORE
President unveils his alternative framework for judicial reform; Netanyahu rejects it (Times of Israel)
Warning of civil war, Herzog urges sides to seize ‘formative constitutional moment,’ not destroy country; PM: It doesn’t bring necessary balance, Gantz accepts it, Lapid weighs it

A last, desperate, long-shot plea: Prime Minister Netanyahu, stop this madness (Times of Israel)

ANALYSIS
What is in Herzog’s judicial reform ‘People’s Outline?’ (Jerusalem Post)
President Isaac Herzog presented his judicial reform outline on Wednesday night

Herzog's Plan Is Too Reasonable for Netanyahu's Radical Allies (Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz)
Israel's President came up with a compromise plan that protects judicial independence but gives several important achievements to Netanyahu's coalition. By rejecting it, the government is putting Israel on the verge of a constitutional crisis

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Photo: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left,  with President Isaac Herzog during the traditional group photo with Israel's new government in December (EPA/ABIR SULTAN)