Netanyahu says millions who voted for right wing ‘demanded’ judicial overhaul

A day after an estimated 80,000 people turned out to a mass protest in Tel Aviv against the government’s proposed judicial overhaul plan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue with the massive reform plan regardless.

“We will complete legislating the reforms in a way that will correct what needs correcting, totally protect individual rights and restore the public’s faith in the justice system, which so badly requires this reform,” Netanyahu says at the outset of the weekly cabinet meeting.

Netanyahu says that two months ago, “millions of people took to the streets in order to vote in the election,” and their voices should be heard as well.

The prime minister rejects the suggestion that voters who backed his government do not support the proposed shake-up of the judicial system: “The millions of citizens who voted for the right-wing camp knew about the intention to make deep reforms in the judicial system. More than that: they demanded it from us.”

Netanyahu says there must be a “substantive, in-depth and serious dialogue” about the plans, instead of being “swept away by inflammatory slogans about civil war and the destruction of the state.”