The Jerusalem Post ePaper

PM pushes for united front with France against Iran

• By TOVAH LAZAROFF

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed to build a common front with France against Tehran on Thursday while the Islamic Republic accused Israel of blowing up a munitions dump in the Iranian city of Isfahan.

He met with

President

Emmanuel Macron almost immediately after landing, in his first foreign trip since he returned to power at the end of December.

Prior to departure, he said “the main topic of our talk will be Iran, of course, and the joint efforts to fight its aggression and its aspiration to obtain nuclear weapons.”

His trip follows a visit to Israel by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week, which also focused on strengthening joint efforts by both governments to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power and halting its regional and global aggression.

ongoing corruption trials.

At first consideration, it seems reasonable that what is currently the most momentous project of the government would be at risk without its prime minister.

However, it’s not clear how involved Netanyahu has been with the reforms from the beginning.

Baharav-Miara’s directive that would preclude Netanyahu from promoting the legal reform would have very little impact, considering that the prime minister’s public support of the reforms has been sparse compared to his usual media campaigning.

It is likely no accident that Netanyahu has made few direct public statements in support of the reform.

Although the reforms are the issue that have preoccupied much of society since they were announced, his social media posts address other items with greater frequency.

When his platforms do address the reform – when his team isn’t sharing pro-reform articles to allow the authors to speak for him – they address the rhetoric of the anti-reform protests or the fact that he is fulfilling 2022 election promises, rather than the core arguments as to why the provisions of the reform are needed.

A few weeks ago, when media reports claimed that the attorney-general was considering proclaiming Netanyahu unfit for office over conflict of interest, legal experts dismissed the claims.

Beside the tenuous legal grounds, they noted that it would be required to prove that Netanyahu even busied himself in the process of the reforms at all.

Only in recent weeks has the prime minister advertised how the reforms would positively impact the nation’s economy.

While he is normally not shy to take the lead on his government’s projects, it was Justice Minister Yariv Levin who first presented the proposed reforms to the world, not the prime minister. They have been referred to more as Levin’s reforms than

Netanyahu’s.

Confusingly, in the last few weeks, Levin himself has large- ly avoided interviews to argue for his flagship project, allowing others to make the case for or against it.

Instead, Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee chairman Simcha Rothman has been leading the reform charge, not just because the reforms have to be passed as a government bill, but also to present them to the public and abroad.

On Thursday, it was Rothman, not Levin or Netanyahu, who addressed international press and diplomats at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He presented his case for why the current legal system was broken and needed to be fixed.

It was also Rothman who, according to KAN, had traveled to the US to do the same for American Jewish communities.

When asked at the JCPA event whether the reforms could continue after the attorney-general had ordered against his direct or indirect involvement, Rothman indicated that it would not derail the reform process.

Further, he said, “I’ve spoken to many people in the government about the reform, and Netanyahu was not one of them.”

Netanyahu is no fool. He or his advisers likely knew that the conflict of interest agreement coordinated by former attorney-general Avichai Mandelblit in 2020 to condition his forming of a government could still be in effect, or that the new attorney-general would impose one.

It is likely that he has kept the reforms at a relative arms’ length by design. Levin’s baffling media strategy could even be a further buffer to protect Netanyahu from claims of involvement, as Levin is in the Likud, Netanyahu’s party.

If anything, the attorney-general has formalized boundaries that Netanyahu has already been careful to keep.

As indicated by Rothman’s lack of worry about his project’s future, there will likely be no change in the process of the reforms over the attorney-general’s order to Netanyahu. If anything, it will only prove to pro-reformists that she has too much power, which will add

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2023-02-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-02-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://jpost.pressreader.com/article/281719798730469

Jerusalem Post