‘Democracy isn’t in danger,’ Netanyahu tells Knesset in tirade against ‘deep state’

“Israel has been and will remain a democracy,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told opposition lawmakers at the Knesset on Wednesday, pushing back against allegations that his government is systematically undermining the rule of law.

Netanyahu also appeared to endorse a harder line on Gaza than previously taken by his government, threatening to take control over territory in the coastal enclave to pressure Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages.

Slamming his fist on the podium, Netanyahu condemned “bullying,” “incitement,” and “violence against elected officials” while members of the opposition yelled and jeered at him during a so-called 40-signatures debate — a plenum discussion that the opposition can call once a month and that the prime minister is legally obliged to attend.

While the debate was officially called to discuss the rising crime rate in the Arab sector, much of the discussion was focused on the government’s recent moves to fire top officials and gain greater control over the judiciary, which have been slammed by critics as anti-democratic.

“Democracy isn’t in danger; the rule of bureaucrats is in danger. The deep state is in danger,” Netanyahu insisted, railing against a “small coterie of officials” who he alleged are working against the elected government.

Netanyahu, who has been in power since 2009 except for an 18-month period, has in recent weeks stepped up accusations that there is a “deep state” running the country that is out to thwart him, echoing political rhetoric from the US.

“In a democracy the people are sovereign, and the people demand that its free vote in the polling booths be practically carried out in decisions, appointments, policies,” he declared — adding that while the government does not have “unlimited power,” it “cannot be that the government has zero power… There must be a balance between the branches of government.”

Netanyahu’s critics say he is working to undermine the democratic checks and balances on his power.

Changing how judges are selected

Netanyahu’s speech came immediately ahead of the final Knesset vote on a controversial bill that would greatly increase political control over the judicial appointments process.

Netanyahu has also taken flak for taking steps to terminate Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, which she has claimed is part of a government effort to place itself above the law and to operate without checks and balances.

The attorney general has repeatedly opposed the government over legislation it has proposed, as well as appointments it has made and actions it has initiated, arguing on numerous occasions that the measures taken by the government contravened the law and undermined the rule of law in different ways. Despite cabinet ministers’ frequent anger against her, Baharav-Miara has insisted it is her job to tell the government when it is acting unlawfully.

In addition, Netanyahu’s government last week voted to fire Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, which is currently investigating several of the prime minister’s top aides over financial ties to Qatar.

The prime minister and the government have contended that there was no conflict of interest in firing Bar despite the Shin Bet’s investigation into the so-called Qatargate scandal and that the mutual and public animosity between Bar and the government made it impossible for the two to work together any longer.

Commenting on the investigation, Netanyahu last week tweeted that “in America and in Israel, when a strong right-wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will.” He subsequently released a video expounding, in Hebrew, on the term.

In America and in Israel, when a strong right wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people's will. They won't win in either place!
We stand strong together.

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) March 19, 2025

“They want me and the government to be a potted plant [and not do anything],” Netanyahu said in the social media clip, pointing to a plant in a Prime Minister’s Office corridor.

After a ruling freezing Bar’s firing, several ministers openly vowed to defy the High Court of Justice, prompting opposition politicians to threaten a nationwide strike and large crowds of citizens to take to the streets.

Condemning the protests

Addressing the widespread public discontent over these issues, Netanyahu told opposition lawmakers in the Knesset on Wednesday that they were “sowing anarchy in the streets.”

It is permitted to demonstrate, but “we see your demonstrations, your roadblocks, your bonfires, your attacks on police officers… the violence against elected officials, not to mention the explicit threats of murder against the prime minister and his family and other elected officials,” Netanyahu claimed.

Six demonstrators were arrested on Tuesday when they attempted to prevent lawmakers from entering the Knesset to vote on the 2025 state budget by blocking the building’s entrance.

He said that all the threats and violence were coming from “one direction” and one camp — referring to the opposition.

He denied that he used the word “traitor” to describe prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 when speaking at a large Jerusalem demonstration against the Oslo process, weeks before Rabin was assassinated. Rather, he said, he had declared that “Rabin was wrong.”

In the past, he went on, amid shouting and protest from the opposition, “You said it was forbidden to even use certain words like ‘murder’ and ‘traitor’; that those were terrible things to say. Now it doesn’t matter [to you]. But it does matter, and it’s dangerous.” He claimed that he was being branded a “traitor, traitor, traitor” time after time.

Nonetheless, he vowed, “It won’t stop us, it won’t deter us. The tyranny of the small minority will not triumph over the will of the great majority.”

As Netanyahu spoke, The Democrats party MK Gilad Kariv was removed from the plenum.

‘Seizing territory’ in Gaza

Turning to the war in Gaza, Netanyahu said that “the more Hamas persists in its refusal to release our hostages, the more powerful the pressure we will exert. And I say to Hamas: This includes seizing territory, and this includes other things that I will not list here.”

Even as the prime minister boasted of leading Israel to “complete victory,” rocket alerts sirens went off in the Gaza border area, and Opposition leader Yair Lapid responded to Netanyahu.

Addressing lawmakers following the premier’s speech, Lapid said that Netanyahu would be remembered as the “October 7 prime minister.”

“They will not remember anything from you except that: 1,800 dead and murdered, 14,000 injured,” he asserted, referring to the costs of the attack and the subsequent war. “You are indeed doing something that no government has done.”

Turning to the 2025 state budget, which passed its final reading on Tuesday evening, Lapid accused Netanyahu of “squeezing the Israeli middle class in order to survive politically.”

“You failed to maintain security on October 7, and now you have failed to manage the economy, and you are again doing everything to shift responsibility onto others,” he continued.

Unlike Argentine President Javier Milei and US Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk, “today you are the head of the fattest, most wasteful and most reckless government in the history of the country,” he said, referring to their efforts to slash government.

An underperforming government

National Unity chairman Benny Gantz, a former member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, also lashed out against the prime minister following his speech.

“Repeating a lie does not make it the truth,” he told lawmakers.

Accusing Netanyahu of lying about the existence of a deep state, as well as about Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and the management of the war, Gantz said that “the truth cannot be obscured. Only after we joined the cabinet was the return of the hostages included in the war’s objectives.”

“We pressured you to enter a ground maneuver, otherwise, it would not have happened because you were afraid,” Gantz stated. “We demanded to advance the entry into Rafah and Khan Younis, and to move north [on Hezbollah in Lebanon] sooner so as not to lose another year, and you said ‘What’s so urgent?’

“You know the truth, you also know why you are so afraid of a state commission of inquiry [into the Oct. 7 disaster] that will expose not only your failures and those of your government’s before the massacre, but also your and your government’s underperformance when the war began,” Gantz alleged.

Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.