Benjamin Netanyahu is shepherding through Israel’s Parliament several laws that will codify the unusual agreements he has made with coalition partners in exchange for their support, the final hurdle in his comeback bid as prime minister.
One such law would grant Aryeh Deri, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish politician and Netanyahu ally convicted less than a year ago of tax evasion, a workaround to the prohibition on convicts serving in the cabinet. The law would allow people recently convicted of crimes to serve as ministers if they had suspended jail terms and didn’t serve time in prison, like Mr. Deri. Mr. Netanyahu has pegged Mr. Deri for three different ministerial positions: health, interior and alternating finance minister.
Another proposed law would create a new position of national-security minister for far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, giving him expanded powers over the country’s police. Israel’s attorney general opposes the law, setting up a potential clash between the prospective new government and a justice system, including the nation’s Supreme Court, it seeks to change.
“It can become a test case for the power balance of the current coalition and the court,” said Gideon Rahat, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank in Jerusalem.
Read the article by Dov Lieber in The Australian.