Barak: Netanyahu was ‘repeatedly warned’ judicial overhaul was weakening Israel ahead of Oct. 7
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Former prime minister Ehud Barak says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allowed Israel to weaken significantly ahead of October 7 despite being “repeatedly warned” of the implications of his judicial overhaul policies.
Testifying before an independent civilian commission of inquiry into the October 7 disaster, the former prime minister and IDF chief of staff defends opponents of the overhaul who announced last year that they would no longer show up for volunteer reserve duty in protest of the government’s plans regarding the judiciary.
The protest was “justified, important and necessary” in the face of a choice between liberal democracy and “a de facto, racist, ultranationalist, reckless and corrupt messianic religious dictatorship,” he says.
Arguing that “there was no refusal” to perform military service on the part of opponents of the overhaul and that such claims constitute “a ruse intended to discredit the protest,” Barak says instead that the protesters had threatened to stop volunteering because they were “not ready to be killed in the service of a dictator.”
“It is clear that the obvious weakening of Israeli society as a result of a year of controversy and struggle against dictatorship has an effect on the way our opponents perceive the State of Israel and its capabilities. But the question is who is responsible for this, and I unequivocally state that the one who is responsible for this is the one who sets the chain of circumstances in motion,” he continues.
Barak blames Netanyahu, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and MK Simcha Rothman, the chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.
