JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected the president Joe BidenThe suggestion that the prime minister “walks away” from a controversial plan to reform the legal system, saying the country makes its own decisions.
The exchange was a rare episode of public disagreement between the two close allies and signals friction building between Israel and the US over Netanyahu’s judicial changes, which he postponed after mass protests.
Asked by reporters Tuesday night what he hopes the prime minister will do with the legislation, Biden replied: “I hope he walks away from it.” The president added that the Netanyahu government “cannot continue down this path” and urged a compromise on the plan that disturbs Israel. The president also sidestepped US Ambassador Thomas Nides’ suggestion that Netanyahu would soon be invited to the White House, saying: “No, not anytime soon.”
Netanyahu responded that Israel is sovereign and “makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressure from outside, even from best friends.”
Later on Wednesday, Netanyahu struck a more conciliatory tone, saying that while “Israel and the United States have had their occasional differences,” the alliance between them was “unbreakable.”
“Nothing can change that,” he said in remarks to the State Department’s Democracy Summit.
The icy exchange came a day after Netanyahu called for a halt to his government’s controversial legislation “to avoid civil war” following two straight days of mass protests that drew tens of thousands of people to the streets of Israel.
“Hopefully the prime minister will act in a way that he can try to reach a genuine compromise. But that remains to be seen,” Biden told reporters as he was leaving North Carolina to return to Washington.
Israeli protest organizers called a rally in support of Biden outside the US embassy building in Tel Aviv on Thursday, while Netanyahu’s allies doubled down on their criticism.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, a close ally of Netanyahu and the minister in charge of police, told Israel Army Radio that Israel is “not another star on the American flag.”
“I hope the president of the United States understands this point,” he said.
Speaking to Kan public radio, Education Minister Yoav Kisch said that “one friend cannot try to impose himself on the other on internal issues.”
Netanyahu had several public disputes with the then president. Barack Obama on Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians and the Iranian nuclear issue. In 2015, behind the White House’s back, she addressed Congress and criticized a nuclear deal between world powers and Iran that was in the offing.
Nimrod Goren, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, noted that the relationship between the US and Israel has had previous crisis points, for example, over the now-defunct agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities. In contrast, he said, the White House now seemed to be “questioning Netanyahu’s competence as prime minister, and whether he is trustworthy or accountable.”
Netanyahu and his religious and ultranationalist allies announced judicial reform in January, just days after forming his government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history.
The proposal has plunged Israel into its worst internal crisis in decades. Business leaders, top economists and former security chiefs have spoken out against the plan, saying it is pushing the country towards dictatorship.
It has also drawn criticism from supporters of Israel in the US, including American Jewish organizations, as well as Democratic members of Congress. TO Pew survey published last May found a growing partisan divide over Israel and the Palestinians, with democrats ― especially young voters ― expressing increasingly favorable views of the Palestinians.
The plan would give Netanyahu, who is on trial on corruption charges, and his allies the final say in appointing the nation’s judges. It would also give parliament, which is controlled by his allies, the authority to overturn Supreme Court decisions and limit the court’s ability to review laws.
Critics say the legislation would concentrate power in the hands of the coalition in parliament and upset the balance of checks and balances between branches of government.
Netanyahu said he was “working towards a broad consensus” in talks with opposition leaders that began on Tuesday.
Yair Lapid, the leader of the opposition in Israel’s parliament, wrote on Twitter that Israel was America’s closest ally for decades, but “the most radical government in the country’s history ruined it in three months.”