Tzipi Livni warns incoming government advancing ‘destruction’ of Israeli democracy
Former justice minister under Netanyahu calls on center-left politicians to ‘put differences aside’ and battle new right-wing and religious coalition

Tzipi Livni, former justice minister under Benjamin Netanyahu, who is slated to return as prime minister in the coming week, warned Friday that his incoming government would “destroy Israeli democracy.”
“The new government is not only advancing a worldview that is opposed to mine… but is advancing the destruction of democracy,” Livni said in a Friday evening Channel 12 news interview.
“The majority of the public voted for this government. But the idea that the majority can do whatever it wants is not democratic,” she said.
“The majority can’t decide that the next elections will be in 10 years instead of four, and the public can’t decide that the police will be political, and the public can’t decide to abolish the courts, and can’t decide that if the government is harming me, I’ll have nobody to turn to,” Livni said.
“In a democracy, the majority gets to choose, but there are boundaries and restrictions, and we need to fight for this,” she added.
The remarks came after Netanyahu on Wednesday formally declared he had formed a government, which he must swear into the Knesset by January 2.

In the meantime, Netanyahu has been working to hammer out coalition deals with his ultra-Orthodox and far-right political partners, further details of which emerged on Thursday.
Livni called on politicians on the center-left to “put their differences aside” and battle the incoming right-wing and religious Netanyahu government.
“They need to make a joint office, and if they have no space they can use my living room, and give a home to those who feel they are not represented by the government,” she said.
Livni, a former Likud MK who left the party to join Kadima in 2005 and later competed against Netanyahu, served as justice minister in Netanyahu’s third government, between 2013 and 2014.