Prime Minister Netanyahu is embracing controversial overhaul of his right-wing government. Thousands of reservists threaten to be refused service – and receive top-notch support.
Blocked roads, water cannons in action, clashes with police and increasingly harsh rhetoric from both sides of the conflict – Israel is not resting in the dispute over the government’s planned judicial reform. On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s religious right-wing government aims to have the first element of reform finally approved by parliament.
It seemed for a moment on Thursday that Netanyahu had decided otherwise: he announced a speech live on television for the same evening, a medium he had already used a few months ago to announce a temporary suspension of reform. In that speech, however, he only reaffirmed his government’s will to carry out the first part of the reform, the abolition of the so-called adequacy standard. At the same time, he sharply criticized opponents of the reform who had threatened to refuse his reserve service in protest of the plans. “What threatens democracy is the refusal to serve,” he said. “In a democracy, the military is subordinate to the government.”