Live UpdateFrom the Liveblog of Thursday, March 9, 2023

Herzog in primetime address: Throw out current overhaul legislation now

9 March 2023, 8:23 pm 1 Edit

President Isaac Herzog gives a primetime speech pleading for compromise on the judicial overhaul plan, on March 9, 2023. (Haim Zach/GPO)

President Isaac Herzog makes an emotional plea to the opposition and coalition to come together and agree on a compromise deal on the judicial overhaul before the nation is torn apart.

“I will not give up — I will pay any price to find a solution,” Herzog says in a primetime address while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is out of the country.

Herzog says he has been “working around the clock for 10 weeks” in an attempt to bridge the gaps.

The current legislation advancing through the Knesset “needs to be discarded now and forever,” he says. Those bills are “wrong, oppressive and endanger our democratic foundations. They must be replaced immediately with a different, agreed-upon plan.”