Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just wants an off-ramp that would allow the judicial reform saga to go away. Perhaps not for good, but for the time being for sure. The compromise proposal presented by the president to the Opposition leaders and the protesters — from which the Likud distanced itself – is a plan he would gladly embrace.
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He believes it gives everyone what they want – the Opposition will get the long pause to the legislation on judicial reform; Justice Minister Yariv Levin and other die-hard supporters of the reform in the Coalition would get a veto on the Judicial Selection Committee under the official letter of the law, which would include a right to handpick the Supreme Court's chief justice. They can come back for more later.
Video: PM Netanyahu speaks about judicial reform / Credit: Twitter/Prime Minister's Office
Netanyahu doesn't believe that accepting the plan would be tantamount to surrender. He won't give the Opposition such an accomplishment, which would only reinforce the feeling among right-wing voters that they are second-class citizens because it would underscore the Right's inability to govern even when winning elections.
In recent days Netanyahu has been devising a strategy that would divide his term into two phases: The first, for a duration of just over a year, would see the judicial reform put on hold (except for the Judicial Selection Committee changes), and this would go ahead even without the Opposition's input. The remainder two years of his term (or 18 months if the government collapses and early elections are called), will see the judicial reform movement move full steam ahead.
He doesn't see a contradiction in the two phases of his term, he believes this is just a necessity. The launching of the judicial reform was flawed and got the Left mobilized because of its bombastic and dramatic declarations, essentially sucking out the air from all the other policy goals of the government. The public no longer listens to what the ministers say, despite the government working for the citizens and doing big things, because Israelis have been distracted fully by the judicial reform process. This is not where Netanyahu wanted the government to be some 8 months after its formation. He has big things on the agenda: Meeting President Joe Biden and finalizing a deal with Saudi Arabia, as well as bolstering Israel's economy and dealing with the pressing security needs in the wake of growing terrorism.
Netanyahu wants all the background noise to go away to get all this done, and he is willing to give the Opposition a long pause in judicial reform and even legislate a bill that would prevent the removal of the attorney general for that duration. He believes this would calm the Left's concerns, but no one on the other side is willing to talk about compromise.
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