The Israeli President's House, led by the strategic advisor, Oved Yehezkel, has been holding talks since the early hours of Sunday morning with the representatives of the government, the secretary of the coalition, Yossi Fox, the Minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, and attorney Michael Rabelo in an attempt to reach an agreement on the legislation to reduce the “Reasonableness Clause”. However, a source in the negotiations noted that so far "there has been no breakthrough."
At the same time, Professor Yedidia Stern, Yuval Albashan, and the Union’s chairman Arnon Bar-David are also involved in talks with the coalition. Bar-David convened an emergency meeting Saturday night at his office in Tel Aviv with the participation of senior union officials and business sector chairman Dobi Amitai.
Bar David's emergency meeting was held against the backdrop of growing pressure from the business sector and the heads of large companies to shut down the economy in order to unilaterally stop the progress of the judicial legislation. Last week, Bar-David and Amitai met with Netanyahu and called on him to reach broad agreements. Since then the chairman of the largest Israeli Union has been in contact with the Prime Minister's Office.
It's time for Israel to find a middle ground in judicial reform - editorial: It is well past the time for both Netanyahu and the opposition and protest movement leaders to again push the pause button and enter into negotiations. JPost https://t.co/CAjAH5gYpd pic.twitter.com/QBJsYb76RQ
— Jewish Community (@JComm_NewsFeeds) July 19, 2023
Bar-David is in a difficult dilemma. On the one hand, from the point of view of the Union, the shutdown of the economy can stop the legislation, as happened after Galant's dismissal. In this case, Bar David can be portrayed as the strongest and decisive factor in the country. On the other hand, the heads of the committees in the large companies that are unionized under him, identify with the Likud, such as, for example, the Aerospace Industry.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who underwent a pacemaker implantation Saturday night, decided to continue promoting the judicial legislation. This, despite the widespread protests and warnings of IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Defense Minister Yoav Galant about the expected damage to the competence of the IDF due to the refusal announcements of 1,142 Air Force reserve personnel, including hundreds of pilots.
Israel's govt spent months trying to negotiate compromises *demanded* by the minority opposition, The negotiations got nowhere because the opposition is unwilling to compromise on anything - even the tiny slice of judicial reform being passed in the Israeli parliament now 1/2
— Ron M. (@Jewtastic) July 22, 2023
The opposers of the judicial reform announced a huge demonstration expected in front of the Knesset starting at 4:00 PM on Sunday. This comes after Saturday evening when about 80,000 citizens participated in a protest in Jerusalem. Supporters of the judicial legislation will hold their own demonstration in Tel Aviv, at 6:00 PM, this Sunday evening.
