[ad_1]
In an unusual statement released late at night just before 1 a.m., Mr. Netanyahu said he appreciated Mr. Biden’s support for Israel and would try to overhaul “by broad consensus,” but added that his government had not acted “under pressure from parties abroad, including from best friends.”
Opposition MPs in Israel accused the government of playing a double game by delaying the passage of the law, as well as taking procedural steps in parliament that would expedite a vote on the bill in the future. But the coalition said it was just a technical move.
On the whole, however, the opposition felt relieved.
“This morning we are allowed to rejoice a little,” Nadav Eyal, a columnist for the major centrist newspaper Yediot Ahronot, wrote on Tuesday morning. “Israeli democracy may one day die,” he added. “But it won’t happen this week, not this month, and not this spring.”
The president’s talks are based on weeks of mediation between academics and government officials in February and March, during which participants said compromises had been found on all but one issue: the government abandoned its goal of appointing a majority of members to a committee that appoints judges. .
“The discussion we are starting now does not start out of nowhere,” Yochanan Plesner, president of the Israel Institute for Democracy, one of the study groups involved in the previous mediation, said at a press briefing Tuesday. “Politicians are not entering into barren ground for negotiation, but into something more mature,” he added.
The temporary truce means Israelis are about to enter an emotional month of depression and are deeply divided. Passover begins next week, and later in April, Israel will celebrate both its annual Day of Remembrance in memory of those killed in wars and terrorist attacks, as well as the 75th anniversary of the founding of the state according to the Jewish calendar.
[ad_2]
