From the Liveblog of
Monday, September 9, 2024
Lapid accuses justice minister of seeking to ‘abolish Israeli democracy’ in dispute over judges
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"
Addressing reporters in the Knesset in the wake of yesterday’s High Court ruling ordering Justice Minister Yariv Levin to convene the Judicial Selection Committee to select a president for the High Court, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid accuses the conservative politician of seeking “to abolish Israeli democracy.”
“We won’t let that happen,” Lapid warns, saying that if Levin fails to comply with the court, “we will try to convene the committee without him.”
“Levin acts as if nothing happened. As if there was no massacre on October 7, 1,200 Israelis were not murdered, as if more than 700 soldiers were weren’t killed, as if we have no hostages in Gaza. He is one of those primarily responsible for the disaster that happened to us. He and his coup d’état. Now he wants to bring us back to this terrible place,” Lapid says.
Levin denounced the court’s decision as undemocratic and “invalid,” and said he would boycott the incoming president since the appointment would be “illegal” and “illegitimate.”
Lapid calls Levin’s statement “dangerous,” insisting that he “didn’t learn anything nor does he hide his destructive plans” to “bring to the Knesset an anti-democratic law” changing how the president of the court is chosen.
“This is a constitutional crisis… he wants to run over the court, he wants to abolish Israeli democracy. We won’t let that happen,” Lapid declares.
