Lapid says legal shakeup ‘tearing Israel apart,’ urges Likud MKs not to back bill

Standing alongside other opposition party heads, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says that the government’s judicial reform plan “threatens to destroy the country at breakneck speed.”

“What the government wants to bring to the Knesset is not a first reading” of the bill, now expected on Wednesday or next Monday, “but rather a tearing apart of the people of Israel, of Israeli democracy, of coexistence. If this legislation passes, the democratic chapter in the life of the state will end,” Lapid says at a Knesset press conference.

Highlighting the security and economic consequences raised by critics of the shakeup — but dismissed by its supporters — Lapid adds: “If this legislation passes, the Israeli economy will be fatally damaged, the most successful companies will get out of here, the defense establishment will be harmed, IDF soldiers will be put at legal risk, the close alliance with the United States will end.”

The Yesh Atid leader, who has previously said he wanted to pick off Likud lawmakers who were uncomfortable with the direction of the government’s controversial plan, names seven Likud MKs in an attempt to pressure them to rebel, telling them “you can’t sign” this legislation.

He directed his comments at former security officials MK Avi Dichter and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, investor Economy Minister Nir Barkat, former Soviet dissident MK Yuli Edelstein, and senior Likud lawmakers who have pushed back against Netanyahu — Israel Katz, former UN ambassador Danny Danon and David Bitan.

“You know that something crooked and terrible is happening here and you are being asked to sign it. You can’t sign it,” says the opposition leader and former prime minister.