The Biden administration is trying to stop Israel from “going off the rails” with a rushed overhaul of its judicial system, the departing US ambassador has said, as the government revives the legislation and mass protests intensify.
US President Joe Biden and his ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, had urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to slow down and seek a consensus with the political opposition on changes to the country’s Supreme Court, with protests paralysing the country last spring. It is unusual for a US administration to weigh in on matters seen as purely domestic, but Mr Nides said the overhaul raised questions about Israel’s democratic credentials and the US-Israeli bond, which he called as close as family.
“I think most Israelis want the United States to be in their business,” Mr Nides said in his only interview with US media before the former banker returns to the private sector.
“With that sometimes comes a modicum of a price, which is articulating when we think things are going off the rails. One of the messages I sent to the Prime Minister was to tap the brakes, slow down. Try to get consensus.”
Comments by Mr Biden and other senior US officials against the planned judicial overhaul have angered senior Israeli officials, who accused Washington of not understanding the judicial legislation and of unwarranted interference in internal matters.
Read the article by Dov Lieber and Michael Amon in The Australian (from The Wall Street Journal).