Yair Netanyahu shares post urging Supreme Court chief to keep ‘hands off Basic Laws’
PM’s son informs followers of protest scheduled for later in the week near home of court president Esther Hayut
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair shared a post Tuesday telling his followers about a protest later this week near Supreme Court President Esther Hayut’s home.
It came the day after the younger Netanyahu shared a post castigating the IDF chief of staff that prompted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to issue a statement defending the top officer.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu shared a poster advertising the time and location of the Thursday protest. It features a caricature of Hayut scowling grotesquely with the slogan “Esther! Take your hands off the Basic Laws!”
The poster refers to scheduled High Court of Justice hearings on whether to strike down amendments to quasi-constitutional Basic Laws alleged to be unconstitutional or passed for personal and political reasons.
Heralding a potential constitutional crisis, the High Court has set hearings before expanded panels of justices on the legality of two highly controversial pieces of legislation passed by the current government — both amendments to Basic Laws that critics allege undermine the country’s democratic foundations.
One bars the court or the attorney general from ordering a prime minister to recuse himself, while the other bars the court from striking down cabinet or ministerial decisions based on their “unreasonableness.”
אחרי הרמטכ"ל – המתקפה החדשה של יאיר נתניהו: בנו של ראש הממשלה קרא להשתתף בהפגנה מול ביתה של נשיאת בג"ץ | לכל הפרטים >>> https://t.co/1jDC51djOn@avishaigrinzaig pic.twitter.com/IzCKzTuL6V
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) August 15, 2023
The court has never yet struck down a Basic Law, or an amendment to one, due to their quasi-constitutional nature, but has developed doctrines that might enable it to do so, or otherwise intervene.
In a statement issued last week, hours after the High Court indicated it could demand that the government put off application of the recusal legislation until after the next election to prevent it from being a law for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s personal benefit, coalition party heads claimed that the court had no authority to strike down a Basic Law or to otherwise intervene in its implementation, saying that such a decision would disrupt the balance between Israel’s branches of government.
The clash over Basic Law amendments comes as the government pushes ahead with its planned drastic overhaul of the judiciary, which has been met with months of mass protests by opponents. The government and its supporters say the legislation is needed to rein in what they see as an overreaching court, while critics say it will sap the court of its power to act as a check against executive power, dangerously eroding Israel’s democratic nature.
The dispute over the plan has deeply divided Israeli society, seeping into the military, where thousands of reservists have threatened to not show up for volunteer reserve duties if the legislation is passed into law.
Amid concerns that the reservists’ protest could impact the army’s combat readiness, Yair Netanyahu shared a Facebook post on Monday criticizing IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi. It said Halevi “will be remembered as the most failed and destructive chief of staff in the history of the IDF” for not cracking down on the reservists.
That post was deleted from Netanyahu’s page around half an hour after it was shared.
Gallant, the defense minister, swiftly defended Halevi in a tweet, praising him as “one of the most excellent officers that I’ve met in all my years in the IDF and security establishment.”
Without explicitly condemning the post shared by his son, Netanyahu tweeted Monday evening that the country faced “big challenges,” and he is “working day and night together with the defense minister, the IDF chief of staff, senior IDF officers and security forces to jointly guarantee Israel’s security under all circumstances.”
Yair Netanyahu is known for his far-right views and combative social media presence, which has landed him in court on a number of occasions.
He rose in public prominence amid widespread reports that he was influencing his father’s policies, particularly over the contentious judicial overhaul plan.
