Daily Briefing June 3: Coalition MKs boast on X after screaming at Arab lawmakers

Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what’s happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Political correspondent Ariela Karmel joins host Jessica Steinberg for today’s episode.

WATCH the full episode here:

An overnight Knesset session ended early Tuesday with first readings of a bill that calls for dissolution of the Knesset, as well as of two controversial pieces of legislation that would split and weaken the role of the attorney general, reports Karmel. She puts the latter bills in context of the broader war the government has long waged against the judiciary.

A meeting on aid for the Hezbollah-battered north of Israel was tied to a bill by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that would increase tax benefits for West Bank settlements, and Karmel notes that the discussion ended once again without the much-needed financial aid for the north being approved. The aid was finally okayed on Tuesday.

Karmel also reviews the harrowing images of far-right lawmakers disrupting a Knesset event on settler violence against Palestinians, with the MKs posting videos of their antics on social media to boost their image with voters.

Check out The Times of Israel’s ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

Legislation to split and weaken role of attorney general passes first Knesset reading

Funds for war-torn north delayed as Smotrich forges ahead with tax breaks for settlements

PM announces $4.5 billion for war-battered north at ‘special meeting’ few ministers attend

Coalition MKs disrupt Knesset event on violence against Palestinians, threaten attendees

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.

Check out yesterday’s episode here:

Today’s Transcript:

Jessica Steinberg: Hi, welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing. It’s Wednesday, June 3. I’m Jessica Steinberg, speaking today with political correspondent Ariela Karmel. Ariela, hi. Good morning. How are you?

Karmel: I’m good. Thanks, Jess.

Steinberg: Just very briefly about some of the headlines. There are fresh Israel-Lebanon talks that are taking place as the IDF eases safety restrictions in northern Israel, which has been completely battered by Hezbollah barrages, obviously for months and certainly in the last few days. We’re going to look at some of the politics that are taking place right now. An overnight vote to dissolve the Knesset. Also, about a pair of very controversial bills curtailing the power of the attorney general [Gali Baharav-Miara]. Obviously, something we’ve looked at for many, many months. We’ll also talk briefly about what is happening with aid to the North regarding the Knesset and coalition lawmakers storming a Knesset event on settler violence. All of that in our upcoming podcast. Stay with us.

Okay, so Ariela, we had this overnight, Monday to Tuesday, basically, they had this overnight Knesset session, looking at this overall issue of dissolving the Knesset, setting election dates. Tal [Schneider] and I spoke about that the other day. But also this pair of very controversial bills that would severely curtail the power of the attorney general, who is currently Gali Baharav-Miara, make it harder to indict high-ranking government officials, something you and Sam [Sokol] have both spoken about on this podcast, and make it harder to indict government officials, including the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu]. Take us through that. Where do we stand right now, and what are the next steps in all of this?

First reading of the vote to dissolve the Knesset

Karmel: So, on Monday night — it’s hard for me to keep track of the days — there was a very long overnight session that went into the early hours of the morning, and the vote consequently took place to dissolve the Knesset in its first reading on Tuesday morning. We don’t know yet when the next readings will happen. In order for the dissolution to actually pass and for the Knesset to dissolve all legislation, it has to go through three readings before it can pass into law. So we don’t know yet when the subsequent readings will take place. Theoretically, it could be today, but it won’t be because the agenda is already out and they’re voting on the state comptroller today, so that’s something else we can talk about next week. But so my guess is probably that if it is going to happen, it’ll likely be next week that they will hold those subsequent readings for the dissolution. But we don’t really know. We don’t really know what the coalition wants because there is not exactly consensus about this issue. The Haredi parties are the ones who really instigated this entire process.

They initiated it several weeks ago, when they said that they would push to dissolve the Knesset over their anger regarding the government’s failure to pass a draft exemption law for Yeshiva students. But it’s not clear that the government, and specifically the prime minister, actually wants that to happen. They ended up putting forward their own bills to dissolve the Knesset, partly to control the process so that it wouldn’t be the opposition controlling it alongside the Haredi parties, but the coalition. And so that’s what’s happened. They could easily push through the subsequent readings next week. They also could have theoretically done it yesterday, but it was too much after such a long session. But it’s not long legislation, and there is a theoretical consensus, so it could happen quickly. In terms of when elections would then happen, the text of the legislation isn’t specific. All it says is that the elections would take place between September 8 and October 20. So any time in there.

Steinberg: Ariela, can I interrupt you for a second? Isn’t it in their best interest to have as much time as possible ahead of the elections?

Karmel: So this is the question. I spoke when this initially happened, when the preliminary vote took place, to several pollsters looking at it, if it actually has any impact on election results, whether they move elections into September as opposed to the end of October, which is when they’re right now slated to be held. It doesn’t really make any kind of electoral difference. The Haredi parties have theoretically been pushing this because it works for them when all of the students from yeshivot are home, there are holidays, and it’s an optimal time for them to be campaigning. This is one of the arguments that has been put forward. We don’t actually know what’s happening behind closed doors, and if this is really just a way to put pressure on the coalition to pass legislation that they want. In terms of what is best for the coalition and for Netanyahu, I also think that he would prefer to remain in power. That’s been his MO for as long as he can, and to hold off for as long as possible. The last possible date is October 27, now October 20, based on this legislation.

So we could very well see that he stalls the legislation, and we end up having an election on the same date or close to the same date that we would have had in the first place. So, I wouldn’t get too excited about what it means to move up the elections by a month or a month and a half. The significance is not, I think, incredibly massive.

Steinberg: Okay, then let’s look at the other pair of bills, which is what brought them to 5 a.m., I imagine. Curtailing the power of the attorney general and making it harder to indict government officials. Where do we stand now?

Controversial Knesset legislation limiting the attorney general’s powers

Karmel: So, two pieces of legislation that are really connected there, which is why we were going to talk about them together, were put forward and passed in their first reading in the same session to split the role of the attorney general into two, and the second of which was to really weaken and curtail the second role. The attorney general currently in Israel holds a lot of functions. She’s responsible— she being Gali Baharav-Miara — she’s responsible both for advising the government, telling them when they’re aligned with the law and when they are not. She’s theoretically responsible for representing the government in cases in the High Court [of Justice], for example. And she’s also head of the prosecutorial services, which means that she is responsible for and has the power to open investigations and to indict senior public officials. So what this legislation would do is it would first divide this role into the attorney general and the prosecutor general. Initially, in earlier drafts, they talked about splitting it into three roles, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. It’s the two. And that’s really not the controversial element.

That’s not the criticism that people have about this legislation, the split itself. It’s that the existing attorney general role after the split would be rendered powerless. The decisions that the attorney general makes, the advice that the person would give to the government, would not be considered binding on the government. The government will also have exclusive control to appoint, to hire, and fire attorneys general as they see fit. The process is very different now, and it’s purposely constructed in a way to make the appointment less political. So this would concentrate the power of that role exclusively within the government. And the second bill, which applies to the second role that the first bill would split into, the prosecutor general, would make it very, very difficult for the prosecutor general to open investigations against senior officials, which is their role and their responsibility. And they would essentially have to go through various mechanisms, including getting approval from ministers within the government or people who answer to ministers within the government, before they can open an investigation against cabinet members or the prime minister. So it’s a very, very problematic process.

These are the two bills that passed in their first reading, I should say, yesterday, and they will now need to pass subsequent readings before they can pass into law.

Steinberg: I’m thinking about just sort of in Israeli society, what I’ve been seeing the last day, really on social media, people have changed their profile picture to (especially on Facebook) to that of Gali Baharav-Miara, the attorney general, whose image and face have really been very much part of the protests, the anti-government protests as well. Sort of hand in hand, even though it’s not necessarily the same issue, or the same set of issues.

Karmel: Very much so. It’s one of the most hot-button issues in Israeli society right now because it is representative of the larger war that the government has been waging against the judiciary. And that’s the language that they use, by the way. That’s not me opining. That has been going on since and prior to them taking office in 2022. It was a major goal of theirs to weaken and erode the power of the judiciary.

Steinberg: And it’s still happening.

Karmel: And it’s still happening. And this is the major front that they have been pursuing. In the meantime, they tried to fire Gali Baharav-Miara. They couldn’t. The High Court of Justice annulled that. So they have now been trying to pursue other ways of reducing the power that the role holds and asserting control over whoever occupies that role. And I think it bears repeating for listeners abroad to understand how uniquely significant the role of the judiciary is in Israeli democracy, quite unique to other democracies.

And that’s one of the arguments that people who are putting forward these measures make — is that the High Court of Justice and the attorney general have unique powers, their power is too concentrated in this branch of government. This is an argument that people historically made on more of the left side of the spectrum in Israel. The discussion surrounding judicial reform has been going on for a long time, but what opponents of this legislation say is not that they disagree with the issue that there is more power concentrated, more relative to other countries, concentrated in this branch, but that this legislation doesn’t support or strengthen the separation of powers. It simply concentrates power in a different branch, in the executive branch. And in Israel, as opposed to other countries, we don’t have other checks and balances on executive power, like a constitution, like a bicameral legislature, like executive term limits. So the attorney general and the High Court of Justice are really all there is. And that’s why it’s galvanized so much of Israeli society, including people who are not left-wing at all, against this legislation, because of what it means for Israeli democracy.

Steinberg: Okay, thanks for that, Ariela. Let’s take a break. When we’re back, let’s talk about the storming of a Knesset event on settler violence by coalition lawmakers. I also want to talk briefly about what is happening with government aid to the North, which has been truly so beleaguered for months now. So stay with us.

Okay, so Ariela, just briefly, again, after a weekend where the North was battered, where northerners are just kind of throwing their hands up, how do we stick it out here when we are just in this situation? Meanwhile, the Knesset has not voted on this and has not given this aid package. Just give us a brief update about that, and then we’ll move on to this other Knesset event on settler violence.

Aid rehabilitation packages for the North and West Bank tax benefits

Karmel: Right. So the government was supposed to release last week a 5 billion shekel aid package to rehabilitate northern communities. And this has been a package that has been long delayed, long promised, repeatedly postponed. And it is on top of subsequent aid packages, which have been promised to the North also since before October 7, when it was already an issue in terms of developing the North, making sure that it was adequately defended in the event of subsequent wars and aerial bombardment. So this has been an ongoing issue for years. It has become particularly pertinent in the last year and in the last several months, because even though the rest of the country theoretically has been in a ceasefire with Iran, there is no ceasefire in the North. And northern communities, especially on the confrontation line on the Lebanese border, have been under daily bombardment. Cities like Kiryat Shmona and Metula are ghost towns, and there is enormous anguish and anger, and a sense of abandonment that the state has forgotten these communities, especially now.

Steinberg: It’s not just from the residents, it’s from the leaders of those communities who have also been very vocal.

Karmel: Very much so. Mayors and heads of all of the local authorities have been really descending on the Knesset — and they’ve been doing this for a long time, meeting with lawmakers for months if not years — but in the last several weeks in particular, trying to get this aid passed. And last week, there was supposed to be a decision, it was postponed. It was supposed to happen also yesterday, and this grand meeting supposedly took place on this very important issue that only three ministers of the government attended. So there was a lot of anger about that. It’s been tied also to this legislation that [MK] Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s party is putting forward to increase tax benefits for West Bank settlements, and that has now been tied to northern communities because there was a lot of criticism about why are you pushing this tax benefit package to communities in the West Bank when we have communities in the North that are under serious threat and have not gotten this aid. And so, because of that, Smotrich actually added a section, a clause in the draft that would apply to communities within two kilometers of the Lebanese border.

And so that was an effort to get more support for the legislation because it would be very difficult for opposition members to block that. But northern mayors came down for this, and there were very explosive hearings both last week and this week — it’s ongoing. It’s about two kilometers, which is nothing. It’s really a drop in the bucket. Why would you apply it to such a small number? Like, it’s symbolic, it’s a joke. That’s what one mayor said.

Steinberg: You have to extend the zone, obviously, much further.

Karmel: Yeah. And so they were saying, “If you don’t apply it to communities within nine kilometers, we don’t want to be part of this. It’s clearly a political move. You don’t actually care about us.” That’s what was said. So they ended up totally separating the northern clause, even though members of Likud, of the coalition, including the head of the finance committee, [MK] Hanoch Milwidsky, who was a Likud MK, wanted to expand it to include northern communities, but Smotrich vetoed it. So now it’s solely a tax benefits package for West Bank settlements, and the coalition has said that they will immediately pass this aid package, and other benefits for the northern communities. We’ll see if that happens. They’ve said it many, many times, but it kind of really illustrates — that’s what’s so angering about it for northern communities and their leadership — the priorities of this Finance Minister, who is himself, of course, a resident of one of the settlements, Kedumim, that is going to get these benefits and where most of his base is located. Whereas he doesn’t have as much support in the northern communities, and that’s very much how, how this is being perceived.

Steinberg: Got it. Okay, briefly, before we end this podcast, staying with the West Bank, but a very different issue, a Knesset event on settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. And coalition lawmakers stormed this Knesset event, with a certain amount of violence, with a certain amount of anger, I would say violent anger. If you could just describe it for us, take us through it a little bit.

Coalition lawmakers stormed Knesset event on settler violence

Karmel: Yes, pretty horrible scenes took place yesterday during this event. It was organized by lawmakers from the Arab-Jewish, Arab-majority Hadash–Ta’al party about ongoing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. And specifically, the word that was very, I suppose, triggering for these right-wing lawmakers was “transfer.” The idea that settler violence is being encouraged as a matter of policy by the Israeli government in order to displace Palestinians, to transfer them. And this is something that we at The Times of Israel have been covering in great detail for the last several years, and it’s not something that the IDF denies either. There was a recent report, I think maybe from last week, that the IDF said that they told lawmakers something north of 80% of violent incidents taking place in the West Bank right now are committed by Jewish supremacists, Jewish terrorists, against Palestinians. And it is very much — and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other members of his party have very explicitly said this. He said this in a Constitution, [Law and Justice] Committee meeting a couple of weeks ago on the subject of the attorney general legislation. All of this connects. It’s all connected to each other.

And he was talking about how proud he was of everything that has been done in the West Bank, not denying charges of supporting or enabling settler violence, specifically with the intent of driving Palestinian residents away from areas that they live in, particularly in the northern part of the West Bank. This has been ongoing for the last year in particular, where thousands of Palestinians have left. Also, because of IDF operations going on in the north. So this event took place yesterday, led by lawmakers from Hadash–Ta’al. It was attended mainly by Israeli peace activists, civil society groups, and also bereaved families. So one person who was there, and I’ll talk about it in a second, was Ayala Metzger, who is the daughter-in-law of Yoram Metzger, who was a hostage and was captured on October 7 and murdered in captivity in his 80s. It was obviously extremely horrible. She was one of the people attending, but there were other familiar faces if you follow the October Council and activists from the Western Negev.

Who link the policy of the state in the West Bank, very much spearheaded by Smotrich’s Religious Zionism Party and [MK] Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party, as kind of emblematic of what the priorities of this government are, and linking it to anger over, very similarly to what we were talking about regarding northern residents, the abandonment of the South, the failures of October 7, and the state’s inability to grapple with it, the political leadership’s inability to grapple with it, and instead pursuing policy to support violent thugs in the West Bank and displacing Palestinian residents there. So that was the focus of this talk, and it was very controversial. Right-wing lawmakers had tried to prevent it from happening in the Knesset, which didn’t work, but several of them from the aforementioned parties, Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit, as well as Likud, stormed the meeting on multiple occasions, screaming, yelling at lawmakers and attendees, very explicitly threatening them. Ayala Metzger was called a terrorist and a terrorist supporter by [MK] Almog Cohen from Otzma Yehudit and Likud’s [MK] Nissim Vaturi. She was escorted out by the Knesset guard. It was heavily guarded. There was heavy Knesset security at this event, which is not at all typical at normal Knesset committees. But people knew what was going to happen.

Steinberg: There was concern. Sure.

Karmel: There were just a lot of threats made by lawmakers. Zvi Sukkot from Smotrich’s Religious Zionism Party. He said, not just to the Arab lawmakers, but also to the attendees, “We will transfer, but we’ll do it with class. We’ll put you on buses and on trains.” And then after the fact, he said, “I’m not talking about Arabs. I have no problem with Arabs, just with terrorist supporters.” But everyone understood what he meant. Really just harrowing images of Knesset lawmakers screaming at the top of their lungs, threatening attendees, including, again, bereaved families who were in attendance, stealing food from the committee. Just absurd gimmicks. And it’s also very clear that this is all done within the context of elections, that nothing was actually achieved by doing this. But it was very much, it was very helpful for these lawmakers to take a quick video of them screaming obscenities at Hadash lawmakers and peace activists and putting it on their Twitter [X] and showing their base that they’re really sticking it to these terrorist supporters. So that was really the goal, nothing beyond that.

The military talks about it constantly, how big of an issue this is in the West Bank, that so much of their resources are being devoted to having to deal with violent thugs. And, you saw the representatives and the leadership of those violent thugs expressing what they believe in the Knesset yesterday. It’s not a surprise when you see who the leadership of these people are, how they’re represented in the Knesset; it’s not a surprise that this kind of violence is allowed to go on with impunity.

Steinberg: Yep. Ariella, thank you.

Karmel: My pleasure, Jessica.

Steinberg: Yeah. Thanks for those updates. Thanks to you for listening to The Time of Israel’s Daily Briefing. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment. This episode is produced by Ari Schlacht. As always, take care, be well, have yourselves a good week. See you soon.