PM: In a democracy we don’t arrest opposition heads, or encourage civil disobedience

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slaps down far-right members of his coalition calling for the arrest of opposition leaders, while also lambasting the latter for speaking of opposition to the government in increasingly strong terms.

“In a democratic country, we do not arrest the heads of the opposition,” he says in a conversation with President Isaac Herzog. “Just as we do not call ministers Nazis and a Jewish government the Third Reich, nor do we encourage civil disobedience among the citizenry.”

National Unity party leader Benny Gantz said yesterday that the government’s judicial reform plan could lead to “civil war.” Urging the public to lawfully take to the streets, he added, “It’s time to go out en masse and demonstrate; it’s time to make the country tremble.”

Echoing Gantz’s criticism of the planned judicial overhaul, Lapid told his Yesh Atid party that “this is extreme regime change” and that the reforms are “eliminating democracy.” Lapid promised to keep fighting in the streets in what he called “a war over our home.”