The Times of Israel liveblogged Sunday’s events as they unfolded.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel has never and can never accept a civil war.
“Not far from here, Menachem Begin said after the Altalena affair: ‘a civil war — never,'” says Netanyahu during a speech commemorating fallen soldiers from the Etzel pre-state paramilitary group. The ceremony took place in Tel Aviv, not far from where the Atlalena ship was sunk during a battle between the IDF and Etzel, which was led at the time by Begin — before they eventually merged.
“Today as well: No to a civil war, yes to internal unity,” Netanyahu adds.
The commanding officer of the elite Duvdevan unit, Lt. Col. “Daled” — who can only be identified by the initial of his first name in Hebrew — will serve as a torchbearer for Israel’s 75th Independence Day torch-lighting ceremony.
Daled is one of 12 people who will light a torch during the ceremony on the evening of April 25, one of the annual highlights of the national holiday.
The IDF said Daled was tapped for the honor of lighting the torch for his “sense of mission and giving for the common good… and pioneering reflected in his role.”
Daled, a father of six, initially began his military career in the Paratroopers Brigade. He was wounded during the 2014 Gaza War while commanding a company, but insisted to continue to serve in combat roles. As the commander of Duvdevan, Daled is in charge of training new soldiers, as well as leading operations, the IDF said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denies the Central Intelligence Agency’s leaked analysis that the Mossad spy agency was backing the protests against his government’s effort to overhaul the judiciary.
“I value American intelligence a little more than that, and I think they probably know the truth,” Netanyahu tells NBC’s Meet the Press, when asked about the leaks that were widely covered in US media and quickly denied by Israel.
“The truth is that the Mossad legal adviser said that under Israeli law, junior members of Mossad can participate in demonstrations, not senior members. That’s, I think, what led to this misunderstanding,” he says. “The Mossad, the military, the internal security services are working hand-in-hand with me as prime minister to assure the security of the country, and they’re doing a damn good job of it.
The 15-minute interview focuses largely on the judicial overhaul, with Netanyahu repeating talking points about the need for reform to restore a balance of power between the branches of government, and insisting that he is seeking as broad of a consensus as possible for the changes he is seeking.
David Blatt, the US-Israeli basketball coach and former player, has been selected to light a torch at the official state Independence Day ceremony next week.
Blatt played for many years in Israel’s Super League, then went on to serve as head coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv and Israel’s national team, before moving on to a storied international coaching career, including several stints coaching in the NBA.
In 2019, Blatt announced that he had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
The Biden administration urges Israel to implement the long-frozen agreement to establish a formalized egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall.
“I visited the Western Wall for the first time today and met with Rabbi of the Wall Shmuel Rabinowitz. I reiterated US support for implementation of the 2016 Western Wall agreement to expand the egalitarian space at the Wall,” tweets US Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain.
I visited the Western Wall for the first time today and met with Rabbi of the Wall Shmuel Rabinowitz. I reiterated U.S. support for implementation of the 2016 Western Wall agreement to expand the egalitarian space at the Wall. pic.twitter.com/BQXKrVlaTr
— U.S. Ambassador at Large Rashad Hussain (@IRF_Ambassador) April 16, 2023
The deal was initially struck by a previous Netanyahu government with broad support from across the political and religious spectrum. However, the Likud leader later halted its implementation given pressure from Orthodox coalition partners whose backing for the compromise began to waffle. Members of the previous Bennett-Lapid government pledged to implement the deal, but failed to do so due to pushback from their own Orthodox coalition partners, further dragging out a point of contention with Diaspora Jewry.
Hussain has been in Israel for the past several days and visited Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre and al-Aqsa Mosque, together with US Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, lay a wreath at the site of a terror attack in Tel Aviv earlier this month in which an Italian tourist was killed.
Alessandro Parini, a 35-year-old lawyer from Rome, was killed when, according to law enforcement officials, Yousef Abu Jaber rammed his car at high speed into a group of people on Kaufmann Street, leaving a trail of carnage along several hundred meters and into the adjacent Charles Clore Park.
Parini’s body was transferred to Italy last week for burial.
The coalition reportedly intends to advance a bill that severely limits the power of ministry legal advisers when the Knesset resumes its summer session — even if it holds off on many other elements in its planned judicial overhaul.
According to Channel 12 news, the coalition intends to put forth the most extreme version of the legislation, which would transform legal advisers and their advice from professional authorities to discretionary positions of trust. The bill would enable ministers to appoint their own legal advisers, and make both ministry legal advisers and the attorney general’s opinions non-binding on ministers and the cabinet.
Last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a pause in the judicial overhaul legislation to allow for ongoing talks brokered by President Isaac Herzog — centered on issues of judicial appointments and judicial review.
The President’s Residence says that “concentrated and in-depth” negotiations between the coalition and the opposition Yesh Atid and National Unity parties on the judicial overhaul will begin tomorrow.
The talks, brokered by President Isaac Herzog, will “deal with the core issues,” the president’s office says.
Herzog’s office will “continue to do everything in its power to encourage the parties to continue such dialogue aimed at reaching a broad agreement.”
Iran sentences 10 members of the armed forces to prison after finding them guilty of involvement in the downing of a Ukrainian airliner, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reports.
A commander received 10 years in prison and nine others were sentenced to between one and three years, Mizan reports, in the 2020 incident which led to the deaths of all 176 people on board, including 85 Canadian citizens and permanent residents.
For the first time in nine months, Israel posts a budget deficit of NIS 300 million ($82 million), or 0.01% of GDP in March over the prior 12 months, as state revenue from taxes declined, according to preliminary figures released by the country’s Finance Ministry today.
The Finance Ministry says the deficit is fueled by a downward trend in state revenues following the “exceptionally high increase in state revenues” in 2022. In March, state revenues declined 4.7% to NIS 40.8 billion versus NIS 42.8 billion during the same month last year. Government expenditure stood at NIS 43.5 billion in March compared with the NIS 41.9 billion in March 2022.
Although the March deficit is minimal in terms of the percentage of GDP, it comes during a period when Israel’s robust economic growth of more than 6% in 2022 is already expected to moderate to slow to below 3% this year and senior Finance Ministry officials have warned that the government’s proposed judicial overhaul could result in a severe loss of tax revenue and do “very significant harm” to the economy.
Avigdor Kahalani, a former minister, MK and a retired brigadier general in the IDF, will be one of the torch-lighters at this year’s official Independence Day ceremony. He has been recognized repeatedly for his actions during his military service, including in the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Both current Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and former defense minister Benny Gantz praise the decision to tap Kahalani for the honor.
Kahalani will be joined by Shalom Assayag, a comedian, actor and filmmaker, who will also light a torch. So will Nina Avidar Weiner, founding president of the Israel Scholarship Education Foundation, as well as Vered Ben Saadon, founder of the Tura winery in the West Bank.
They are the first names of torch-lighters to be announced this year, despite the ceremony taking place in just 10 days. More names are expected to be released in the coming days.
Iranian police say authorities have closed more than 150 businesses in 24 hours for not respecting the obligation for women to wear headscarves under Iran’s strict Islamic dress code.
The closures are announced a day after police said they have now implemented a plan to deal with women who violate the law, using surveillance cameras and facial recognition technology.
The requirement for women to wear the headscarf in public was enshrined in law shortly after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
“Unfortunately, police have had to seal 137 shops and 18 restaurants and reception areas for not heeding previous warnings” on the dress code, the Tasnim news agency quotes police spokesman Said Montazerolmahdi as saying.
The crackdown comes after the number of women defying the code has risen since a protest movement triggered by the death in custody last year of Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini, 22, for allegedly flouting it.
Former IDF chiefs and current opposition figures Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot slam the government’s purported plan to lower the IDF age of exemption in order to allow ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students to enter the workforce earlier, but also increase payments and salaries to some IDF soldiers.
Gantz, a former defense minister and the current head of the National Unity party, says that the government’s reported current plan “is dangerous.”
Eisenkot says that during this time of division, “it is best not to introduce another partisan dispute.” He says that passing legislation that exempts wide swaths of Israeli society from military service “will have an effect on all those who do serve.”
The proposal by Gantz and Eisenkot seeks to entrench the concept of national service for populations that do not serve, including Haredi and Arab men and women.
The Likud party, meanwhile, counters that the framework currently under discussion is “similar” to Gantz’s — which passed a first reading before the last government was dissolved.
The Likud party says that no agreement has been reached so far on talks to fashion a new IDF enlistment law.
“As of no, there is no agreement on a Draft Law,” the party says in a statement.
The reported proposal on the table would lower the age of final exemption from the army from the current 26 to 23. According to reports, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wants it to be lowered further to 21, while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant believes it cannot go lower than 23.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with this year’s group of torchlighters ahead of the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Yad Vashem, which will take place tomorrow night.
Netanyahu hears the personal testimonies of Holocaust survivors Tova Gutstein, Ben-Zion Raisch, Judith Sohlberg, Reuven (Robert) Bonfil, Efim Gimelshtein and Malka Rendel, who will be lighting torches this year, and were selected because their stories fit this year’s theme of “Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust.”
“Your stories are a model for the human spirit, and for the greatness of the soul that lies within our people,” Netanyahu tells the group. “Your personal stories are intertwined with the story of our national revival, and there is no better illustration of that.”
The head of a memorial organization for fallen Israeli soldiers warns of potential violence at official Memorial Day commemorations next week, amid deep societal divisions over the government’s plans to overhaul the judicial system.
Eli Ben Shem, the chairman of Yad Labanim, says his group has been contacted by thousands of bereaved families asking that politicians be prevented from attending memorials on April 25.
“Politicians who didn’t serve in the military will come to some cemeteries, and the families already said if they do, they will be pelted with eggs at the entrance,” Ben Shem tells Channel 12 news. He noted that some families “think otherwise and want politicians to come,” and that therefore Yad Labanim is not taking a position.
He expresses concern there could be violent scenes, citing “very big threats from here and there,” without elaborating. “I’m afraid there will be violence, that they won’t allow politicians to speak,” he adds.
Islamic State terrorists have killed 26 people who were foraging for wild truffles in Syria’s Hama region, opposition and state media report.
Amid the economic devastation of Syria’s yearslong war, foraging for truffles can help people earn money, as the seasonal delicacy fetches a high price.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition media group based in Britain, says civilians and military personnel were among the victims of the armed attack in the eastern outskirts of the city of Hama, 115 miles (186 kilometers) north of the capital Damascus.
State news agency SANA says the attack was carried out by members of the Islamic State group.
A security think tank considered to be hawkish and hold conservative views issues a rare warning over the controversy surrounding the government’s judicial overhaul plans.
In a statement titled “Israel should prepare for war — and politicians need to come to their senses,” the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security says the overhaul has “caused enormous damage to the State of Israel.”
“The struggle over legal reform has caused enormous damage to the State of Israel. On the political level, the image of American backing has been undermined. On the economic level, the country’s credit rating has decreased. The public discourse in Israel reached new heights of acerbity and alienation. Above all, national cohesion was cracked primarily due to the IDF being used as a tool in the political debate,” says JISS.
“Israel is seen from the outside as a torn society, gradually losing its ability to function. Friendly countries, among them those who signed the Abraham Accords and threw their weight behind Israel’s strategic presence in the region, look in astonishment at an internal conflict that indicates the State of Israel has domestic problems that could dismantle its military capability,” the institute says.
“It is incumbent upon Israel’s leaders from both sides of the political aisle to put aside their differences or quickly reach a compromise that will allow the country to focus on the existential security challenges that lie ahead,” the statement continues.
“The State of Israel must adopt a new paradigm that prioritizes security needs over other legitimate needs. The IDF and all elements of the security establishment must be removed from the political discourse, and elected officials must ensure that they have the necessary resources to prepare for a war that may be inevitable,” JISS adds.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the ongoing corruption trial of Prime Minister Benjamin have reportedly reached an agreement to shrink the list of witnesses who are slated to testify before court.
According to the Kan public broadcaster, more than 60 witnesses will be cut from the list, which is expected to lead to the prosection’s arguments wrapping up in a year, and Netanyahu himself taking the stand within 18 months. The trial has been ongoing for more than three years.
The report also indicates that the attorney general is expected to give up on purported plans to reach some sort of mediated plea deal in the case.
The head of the United Nations mission in Sudan says three staff members have been killed in the restive Darfur region, as fighting rages between army and paramilitary forces.
“Three employees from the World Food Programme were killed in clashes that erupted in Kabkabiya, North Darfur,” UN Special Representative Volker Perthes says in a statement. “Civilians and humanitarian workers are not a target.”
Three days after a deadly bus crash of Israeli tourists in South Korea, 14 remain hospitalized in the country, with four of them in critical condition, according to the Foreign Ministry.
The ministry says that 18 of those who were lightly injured are expected to be brought back to Israel in the next two days.
The body of Margarita Schwartzberg, who was killed in the crash, is also expected to be flown to Israel in the coming days, the ministry adds.
Syria’s chief diplomat is starting a visit to Algeria and Tunisia as part of efforts to revive diplomatic relationships in the Arab world, more than a decade after his country was globally isolated amid President Bashar Assad’s brutal crackdown on mass protests against his rule.
Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad was welcomed yesterday in the lounge of Algiers airport by his Algerian counterpart Ahmed Attaf.
In remarks broadcast by Algerian public television, Mikdad insisted that “relations between the two brotherly countries exist and will continue to exist… beyond the vicissitudes of the situation.”
“My visit will be an opportunity for discussions between the two countries on the latest developments in the region. We need to strengthen this bilateral relationship,” he added.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a hearing alongside Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Minister Dudi Amsalem and coalition chief Ofir Katz to discuss new legislation on the IDF draft.
The current proposal is said to lower the age of army exemption from the current 26 to 23. This means that Haredi men who get an exemption to study in yeshiva full-time no longer need such an exemption above the age of 23, which means they can enter the workforce at a younger age.
According to Hebrew media reports, the IDF has indicated that it does not have a problem with such a change.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Dee family in Efrat as they sit shiva for their wife and mother, Lucy Dee, and their sisters and daughters, Rina and Maia, who were all killed in a terror attack.
Rabbi Leo Dee tells Netanyahu that someone visiting the shiva house said: “‘I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose half your family,’ and I said, ‘Wait, it’s not half my family, we were seven and now it’s four,'” he says, stressing that his family is still strong.
“We’re here, we’re going to move forward, we’ll remember them forever, but we’re resolute,” Dee adds, noting that “I don’t regret coming to Israel one moment,” and that his late wife, Lucy, “would say the same thing.”
Netanyahu, who lost his older brother, Yoni, in an IDF operation in Entebbe in 1976, tells the Dee family that the pain of loss “probably will fade over time, and the memory will always be, that until your last days, that memory will be with you, and they will live inside you.”
Israeli security forces foil an attempt to smuggle 15 handguns from Jordan into Israel, the military says.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, soldiers monitoring surveillance cameras spotted two vehicles and suspicious movement near the border, close to the town of Neve Ur.
IDF troops and police officers dispatched to the scene catch one of the cars, detain three men, and the 15 handguns in their possession are seized, the military says.
The men and weapons are handed over to police for further investigation.
Incidents of gun smuggling on the border with Jordan are frequent.
The Labor party announces that it is pulling out of talks brokered by President Isaac Herzog aimed at reaching a broad agreement over the judicial overhaul legislation.
In a letter to Herzog, the party’s delegation — made up of MKs Efrat Rayten and Gilad Kariv, former justice minister Avi Nissenkorn and Dr. Tamar Hostovsky Brandes — says that its members are choosing not to continue in the talks after learning about “conversations taking place in the dark and deals being made far from the public eye, without our involvement.”
The party also cites Likud Minister David Amsalem’s comments last night calling for Supreme Court President Esther Hayut to be put on trial.
“In view of these patterns of conduct, there is no point to us continuing our attempt to participate in the talks held at the President’s Residence,” the party concludes, noting that it joined the talks initially “despite great skepticism” about the government’s intention to negotiate, but did so out of a “sense of national responsibility.”
In response, a spokesperson for Herzog says that the president “will continue to be open to anyone who wishes to be part of the negotiations, in order to reach as broad an agreement as possible.”
