Israeli democracy eroding, says PM, after refusing to comment on snub of High Court chief

Democracy is eroding in Israel, claims Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a special Knesset session honoring the 60th anniversary of the Knesset building and 77th birthday of the legislative body.

The session has sparked controversy because Speaker Amir Ohana did not invite Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit, leading to a boycott by opposition MKs with the exception of opposition leader Yair Lapid. President Isaac Herzog was also not present. Netanyahu’s remarks come shortly after he refused to answer journalists’ questions about why Amit wasn’t invited.

“I hope that in the coming year, we will overcome all the obstacles,” Netanyahu says. “We will gain insights. It is possible to gain the insights with goodwill, if it exists,” he says, seeming to hint at his call for a politically-appointed commission to investigate the October 7, 2023 attacks. The premier has proposed an investigative committee made up of coalition and opposition figures, as opposed to a state commission of inquiry, Israel’s highest investigatory body, which Netanyahu rejects.

Such goodwill “certainly exists from my side and, I say, from our side,” says Netanyahu to a largely empty plenum.

“We want to get to those insights that have led Israel for decades.”

Throughout Israel’s history, he says, there were sharp disagreements, “but we knew we were operating in a framework of democracy.”

“That is being eroded, part of the nation regrets it, screams about it,” says Netanyahu, returning to rhetoric that he regularly used around his government’s contentious 2023 judicial overhaul push, which critics slammed as being anti-democratic.

“We have to find the way to bring back the balance between the three branches,” says Netanyahu. Democracy, he argues, rests on protecting individual rights, and ensuring that “there isn’t one branch that tramples the others.”