From the Liveblog of
Monday, December 9, 2024
Smotrich: Judges ‘harming national security’ by refusing to delay PM’s court testimony
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"
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich accuses the justice system of creating a national security threat after the Jerusalem District Court rejected today’s request by members of the security cabinet to delay the testimony tomorrow of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his criminal trial.
Tweeting a copy of the judges’ ruling, which includes their names, the finance minister writes that the judges are “harming national security.”
Smotrich and the other ministers had argued that the current security situation following the fall of the Assad regime in Syria requires Netanyahu as prime minister to be fully focused on his leadership duties. Their claim was rebuffed by the court, which responded that the ministers did not have standing to request a postponement.
Addressing reporters in the Knesset earlier in the day, Smotrich stated that requiring him to begin testifying tomorrow “seriously harms national interests.”
Whoever ignores warnings about this “may be found responsible for security failures and history will judge them for it,” he declared.
Responding to Smotrich’s latest accusation, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid tweets that “no one has harmed [national] security even a fraction of a percent of what the messianic and reckless government of which you are a member has.”
