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Making good on campaign vow, Netanyahu government introduces bill to diminish Israel’s top court
(JTA) — Israel’s new government is wasting little time before following through on a central promise made by its leading politicians: to reshape the country’s judiciary and give lawmakers more power over it.
Yariv Levin, the newly appointed justice minister, on Wednesday announced planned legislation that would severely limit the Israeli Supreme Court’s ability to review and overturn laws and pledged to increase governmental control over the appointment of judges. Under his proposal, a majority of 61 Knesset members could override Supreme Court rulings, effectively ensuring that any governing coalition could override rulings it does not like.
Those moves are seen as overdue by leaders of the country’s right-wing parties, who think the judiciary has veered too far to the left. In recent years, the Supreme Court has banned Israeli construction on private Palestinian lands in the West Bank, forced the acceptance of non-Orthodox conversions and guaranteed some rights to gay couples — all of which the new government opposes.
The proposal’s critics, who include the political opposition as well as an array of liberal and nonpartisan groups in Israel and the Diaspora, say the moves would shatter Israel’s system of checks and balance and cut away at the country’s credential as the only authentic democracy in the Middle East.
“A country that removes basic democratic checks and balances and eviscerates the independence of the judiciary can no longer seriously be referred to as a full democracy,” the CEO of the New Israel Fund, Daniel Sokatch, said in a statement. He added, “The international community, including the United States government, should see this move for what it is — a lurch towards autocracy.”
“It is excruciating to see this government directly undermine the core values of democracy and religious freedom that we value so deeply,” said a statement by the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative movement’s rabbinical group.
A majority of Israelis believe that the Supreme Court should retain the right to strike down Knesset laws that conflict with the country’s “basic laws,” which are widely considered tantamount to a constitution, a poll conducted last month by the Israel Democracy Institute found. But the respondents were deeply divided by their religious orientation; 15% of haredi Orthodox Jews said the court should retain that right, while 76% of secular Israelis said so.
Yedidya Stern, the head of the Jewish People Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in Jerusalem, said in a statement that the question of how the judiciary should be structured should not be subject to normal political decision making.
“This is a question that deserves to be discussed in a substantive manner, with a careful examination of the benefits and risks to the public relating to each of the proposals on their own merits,” said Stern, whose group does not typically criticize Israeli government leaders. “A process of politicization of the judicial system imperils its independence and must be opposed.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would support the legislation; he has campaigned against the judiciary since facing corruption charges, for which a trial is ongoing. The proposed changes come as the high court justices are set to debate a new law, opposed by the country’s attorney general, that allows people convicted of tax crimes to serve in the Cabinet. The law is designed to ensure a ministerial role for Aryeh Deri, who is currently serving a suspended sentence for tax fraud. Deri criticized Levin for unveiling the judicial reform proposal so close to his hearing.
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Mistrial Declared in Case of Students Charged After Stanford Anti-Israel Protests
FILE PHOTO: A student attends an event at a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at Stanford University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Stanford, California U.S., April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president’s office.
Twelve protesters were initially charged last year with felony vandalism, according to prosecutors who said at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. Police arrested 13 people on June 5, 2024, in relation to the incident and the university said the building underwent “extensive” damage.
The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs.
The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.
The charges were among the most serious against participants in the 2024 pro-Palestinian protest movement on US colleges in which demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and Washington’s support for its ally along with a divestment of funds by their universities from companies supporting Israel.
Prosecutors in the case said the defendants engaged in unlawful property destruction.
“This case is about a group of people who destroyed someone else’s property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. That is against the law,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement, adding he sought a new trial.
Anthony Brass, a lawyer for one of the protesters, told the New York Times his side was not defending lawlessness but “the concept of transparency and ethical investment.”
“This is a win for these young people of conscience and a win for free speech,” Brass said, adding “humanitarian activism has no place in a criminal courtroom.”
Protesters had renamed the building “Dr. Adnan’s Office” after Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.
Over 3,000 were arrested during the 2024 US pro-Palestinian protest movement, according to media tallies. Some students faced suspension, expulsion and degree revocation.
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Exclusive: FM Gideon Sa’ar to Represent Israel at 1st Board of Peace Meeting in Washington on Thursday
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will represent the country at the inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace in Washington on Thursday, i24NEWS learned on Saturday.
The arrangement was agreed upon following a request from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will not be able to attend.
Netanyahu pushed his Washington visit forward by a week, meeting with US President Donald Trump this week to discuss the Iran situation.
A U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza and build on the ceasefire agreed in October under a Trump plan.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.
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Two Men Jailed in UK for Islamic State-Inspired Plot to Kill Hundreds of Jews
Weapons seized from the home of Walid Saadaoui, 38, who along with Amar Hussein, 52, has been found guilty at Preston Crown Court of plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired gun rampage against the Jewish community, in Britain, in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on December 23, 2025. They are due to be sentenced on Friday. Photo: Greater Manchester Police/Handout via REUTERS
Two men were jailed on Friday for plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired attack on the Jewish community in England, a plan prosecutors said could have been deadlier than December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were both convicted after a trial at Preston Crown Court, which began a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in the city of Manchester, in northwest England.
Prosecutors said the pair were Islamist extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as they could in an attack in Manchester.
They were found guilty little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said on Friday that, had Saadaoui and Hussein carried out their plan, it “could have been very much more serious” than the attacks in Australia and Manchester.
Judge Mark Wall sentenced Saadaoui to a minimum term of 37 years and Hussein to a minimum term of 26 years, saying: “You were very close to being ready to carry out this plan.”
Hussein refused to attend his sentencing, having refused to attend most of his trial, which Wall said reflected Hussein’s cowardice, describing him as “brave enough to plan to threaten an unarmed group with an AK-47 but not sufficiently courageous to face up to what he did.”
POTENTIALLY ONE OF DEADLIEST ATTACKS ON UK SOIL
Saadaoui had arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into Britain through the port of Dover when he was arrested in May 2024, Sandhu told jurors at the trial.
He added that Saadaoui planned to obtain two more rifles and another pistol, and to collect at least 900 rounds of ammunition.
“This would likely have been one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out on British soil,” Wall said.
Unbeknown to Saadaoui, however, a man known as “Farouk,” from whom he was trying to get the weapons, was an undercover operative who helped foil the plot.
Walid Saadaoui’s brother Bilel Saadaoui, 37, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism. He was sentenced to six years in jail.