Overturn this: 9 things to know for May 13

1. Courting controversy: A Haaretz report Monday morning on a plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push a bill that will allow the Knesset to override the Supreme Court is causing a stir and a half.

• According to the report, the law will both allow the Knesset to ignore previous court rulings about the constitutionality of legislation and strip the court of the ability to strike down future laws.
• “Such legislation would essentially neutralize the Supreme Court in its capacity as the High Court of Justice – something Netanyahu has never publicly supported – by turning its decisions into suggestions instead of legally binding rulings,” the paper reports.
• It would not only allow West Bank annexationists to create a legal mechanism to appropriate land, but would also make it impossible for the court to overturn a Knesset move to give Netanyahu immunity from his legal problems. And if the Knesset wants to outlaw Taco Tuesdays or walking on sidewalk cracks, there will be nothing to stop it.
• In a statement, the prime minister’s Likud party says that although there was an ongoing attempt to “restore the balance” between the legislative branch and the judiciary, the Haaretz report included proposals that had not been under discussion

2. Kill democracy, save the PM: The report has people in the judicial community apparently up in arms.

• “Netanyahu will liquidate everything just to not stand trial,” reads a headline on the Channel 13 news website, quoting “senior judicial sources.”
• In a statement, Avi Himi, the head of the Bar Association, says that “without an independent and robust judicial system, Israeli democracy and the necessary balance between authorities will suffer a critical blow, and we will all pay the price.”
• Legal analyst Mordechai Kremnitzer writes in Haaretz that “we must go to war to defend our homes.”
• “Not only, or even primarily, the Supreme Court’s home, but the home of each and every one of us,” he writes.
• The Israel Democracy Institute sends out a fact sheet from the first time this thing came up, debunking several myths that supporters of the court override measure like to cite and warning that Israel’s democratic system is already uniquely susceptible to checks and balances being thrown off.
• “It is the Knesset, and the executive branch that stems from it, that have potentially dangerous, unchecked power. Unlike many other democracies, Israel has few checks on executive and legislative power: the Knesset has only one chamber as opposed to two, Israel has no federalized state system to balance central authority, and there is no constitution or bill of rights to protect individual Israelis from the tyranny of the majority,” the fact sheet reads. “Even democratic regimes can pass laws and regulations that contravene democratic principles and infringe on basic human rights. In such cases, it is the role of the High Court of Justice to protect the weak and the minority from the majority. A parliament with unlimited powers is dangerous.”

3. Got to move these judicial systems: With the move meaning parties can resubmit bills previously struck down by the courts, the Ynet news site reports that Likud has agreed in coalition talks to back two such measures: jailing African migrants for years or deporting them ,and exiling the families of Palestinian attackers.

• “The point of the override bill is to allow the Knesset, which was chosen by the people, to legislate the policies it was elected for. It will do this on many levels, including fighting terror and removing infiltrators from the State of Israel,” a Likud source tells the outlet.
• It won’t end there. Israel Hayom reports that the United Right-Wing Parties has put together a sheet demanding 16 moves that will essentially remake the court system.
• The planned changes range from the override clause now being discussed to a change in the way judges are appointed, to a rule making it so human rights groups and other NGOs cannot petition the High Court unless they themselves are harmed.
• The paper reports that Likud minister Yariv Levin and URWP No. 2 Bezalel Smotrich have held several meetings on the matter. Both are gunning for the Justice Minister job to push through these reforms.
• “The assessment is that most of the measures will be passed, and more may be added at the request of Likud,” the paper notes.

4. Got to move these liberal streams: Likud is also trying to hammer down agreements with the ultra-Orthodox parties and others.

• Walla News reports that the parties have come together on the issues of respecting Shabbat, the Western Wall and conversions.
• On the Western Wall, an issue that has caused major rifts with the Diaspora, the paper reports that Likud is agreeing with Shas to allow the chief rabbinate to manage the site according to established customs. “The plan … includes the main entrance to the Western Wall such so that Reform, Conservative and other streams won’t have any foothold in the main plaza.”
• The Calcalist daily reports that internecine fighting is also raging within Likud over who will get which ministries. “Gideon Sa’ar’s fate is still unknown. MKs Amir Ohana and Nir Barkat already got offices on the government level, but it’s not clear which portfolios they will get.”
• With the deadline for forming a government falling on Wednesday, Netanyahu has now received a two week extension to get his coalition in a row.

5. Time for nothing, and lawyers for free: Netanyahu is also apparently trying to buy time on the legal front, with his lawyers refusing to pick up evidentiary documents needed for a pre-indictment hearing, according to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, who chided the prime minister’s legal team on Sunday.

• Netanyahu lawyer Navot Tel Zur responds that the courier bringing the documents refused to leave them with a secretary or anyone else but him, but he’s not handling the case anyway, since Netanyahu is in arrears.
• An unnamed Likud official tells Channel 12 news that Netanyahu wants to delay his attorneys’ receipt of the materials until after a coalition is formed, as their content could quickly leak to the public and could embarrass him and weaken his bargaining position.
• At the same time, Hebrew media reports indicate that Mandelblit is likely to accede to Netanyahu’s request to delay the hearing beyond the July 9 deadline.

6. Bibi vs. the Mandelblitz: Yedioth’s Nahum Barnea writes that “the whole story is crazy.”

• “Transferring the documents is supposed to help the suspect prepare for his hearing. Netanyahu isn’t paying us, his lawyers claim, so we refuse to take the documents. Despite that they have not quit, and are asking, as expected from one who represents a suspect, a delay for the hearing,” he writes, predicting that the chances of the gambit not working and Netanyahu not eventually walking away with immunity are “close to zero.”
• Haaretz’s Gidi Weitz writes that Mandelblit should reject Netanyahu’s request for a delay, given that he isn’t using it to prepare for his hearing but rather to buy time until the Knesset legislates immunity for him.
• “The attorney general, who can detect the escape plot Netanyahu is hatching and his transparent attempts at buying time, ought to act in the same manner dictated by the defendant: Suspiciously, firmly and with zero tolerance.”

7. Tanker, meet match: Israel is still watching the Persian Gulf with a wary eye, especially after what are being described as mysterious explosions that damaged Saudi oil tankers near the UAE.

• Yedioth’s Smadar Peri writes that tensions between Iran and the US have reached “new heights” after the explosion.
• “Is this the match that will spark the war between Iran and the US,” she asks. (The answer appears to be no, no it is not.)
• On Sunday, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz told Ynet that “Iran may fire rockets at Israel,” and a senior Iranian official boasted that the US is “not ready for a war, specially when Israel is within our range,” essentially threatening to attack Israel in retaliation for any conflagration with the US.

8. Gulf cover-up: Iran may not be taking responsibility for the attacks on oil facilities, but it played up reports of the attack on the tankers in media outlets linked to the IRGC and Tehran well before the UAE revealed anything, Radio Free Europe’s Radio Farda reports.

• Farda notes that an article in IRNA accused the UAE of trying to cover up the magnitude of the attack, and admits that there may be some funny business with the way the Saudis and the UAE reported on it.
• “The IRNA reports speak about huge fires at the port, seven damaged tankers, names of the vessels, U.S. and French warplanes taking to the air and multiple explosions,” the report notes, but adds, “The Saudi statement said that its tankers were attacked within the commercial zone of the port. This means the ships were not at open sea as the UAE statement had claimed on Sunday.”
• “The question is why major international news agencies were silent on the incident until the UAE issued a statement, but even then there was apparently no serious investigation of what had exactly happened. Wire reports basically repeated statements, without reporters on the ground attempting to verify what had happened.”

9. How far they’ll go: In the Israeli press, pundits see Iran stuck without many good options, with the nuclear deal crumbling and threats rising.

• “In all likelihood, the Iranians would rather wait until the next U.S. presidential election before making their decision, in the hope that Trump is replaced by a Democratic candidate who will restore the nuclear deal,” former IDF intel honcho Yossi Kupperwasser writes in Israel Hayom. “However, it appears Ayatollah Ali Khamenei believes an immediate response to the sanctions is needed to maintain the regime’s reputation as all-powerful in the eyes of Iranians; and that the country’s dire economic situation can threaten the regime’s stability. Still, it’s more reasonable to assume that Tehran, at this stage, will seek to avoid a direct military clash with the United States by recognizing the limits of its own might and vulnerability in the face of American military capabilities.”
• Still, Kupperwasser and others warn that Israel needs to be prepared for Iran to release some pressure by targeting Israel.
• “Iran is not suicidal,” Yedioth’s Alex Fishman writes. “Behind everything the regime does are calculations of gains and losses, and so the crisis will seemingly end in words. That being said, nobody in the West really understands what’s going through the ayatollahs’ heads, and how far they are willing to escalate things.”