Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that his proposed judicial reforms reflect the ideals of America’s Founding Fathers, which he absorbed while spending part of his childhood in Philadelphia.
The reforms would check the power of Israel’s judiciary — likened to a “juristocracy” by critics — by, among other changes, allowing the legislature to choose judges, rather than a panel dominated by judges and lawyers.
Netanyahu’s opponents allege that he is threatening democracy, but the reforms would actually increase the power of the democratically-elected legislature. He recently paused the reforms to allow for negotiations.
Netanyahu spoke to Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, and defended his reforms, as well as his government, which he said had been inaccurately portrayed by the opposition and the media.
He explained:
I was educated in the US in Philadelphia. I learned a lot about democracy in Philadelphia. I read Locke, I read Montesquieu, I read Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and I didn’t just read them, I am trying as best as I can ago implant the principles on which I was raised, right here in Israel. And I think it’s possible. It’s not easy, and given the vilification, it’s hard.
Netanyahu also argued that his government is not the extreme right-wing coalition that opponents describe, noting that it elected the first gay speaker of the Israeli Knesset, and has invested in Arab communities.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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