From the Liveblog of
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Lapid accuses Levin of ‘engaging in criminal blackmail’ against High Court
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"
Responding to Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s apparent threat to revive the government’s frozen judicial overhaul program, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid accuses the senior Likud politician of seeking to undermine Israeli democracy.
“Yariv Levin has offered nothing but destruction and devastation. As usual, he is engaging in criminal blackmail with threats to bring people who want to crush Israeli democracy into the High Court,” Lapid tweets.
The opposition won a majority on the Judicial Selection Committee “because even Levin’s coalition members recoil from his blatant destructiveness,” he states — arguing that because he would not win a vote in the committee in favor of his preferred candidate, Levin is “suddenly not in favor of ‘the will of the majority’ but is trying to take revenge on the entire system.”
“Our plans are to win these elections and repeal all the anti-democratic laws that this government is currently enacting, down to the last one. We will leave nothing of his coup d’état behind,” Lapid says.
