Participants in a meeting of businesspeople and executives with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the end of last week said that he expressed readiness to open up a dialogue on the government’s planned changes to the judicial system in Israel, within a framework organized by President Isaac Herzog.
After the meeting, Netanyahu’s spokesperson released a statement on his behalf saying "This week, as he has all along the way, the Minister of Justice again expressed readiness for dialogue." Netanyahu stressed in the statement that this would be a matter of talks "at the same time as the legislation, and without delaying it."
He also added criticism of the opposition: "So far, we have not heard any readiness for change from the other side. As far as the critics are concerned, any change, even the slightest, was and remains ‘the end of democracy.’"
Dozens of businesspeople and managers of some of the most important companies in Israel took part in the meeting. Among them was Bank Hapoalim CEO Dov Kotler, Israel Discount Bank CEO Uri Levin, Bank Leumi chairperson Dr. Samer Haj-Yehia, Shlomo Fogel, who arranged the meeting, and Chemi Peres and Michael Eisenberg, who are prominent investors in the Israeli technology sector. Netanyahu was accompanied by Minister of the Economy Nir Barkat. The meeting took place at Metzudat Ze'ev, the Likud party’s headquarters in Tel Aviv. The participants were told that this was for security reasons.
Uri Levin said at the meeting, "It’s impossible to ignore all the economists who are expressing such deep fear of these measures, and so you must stop immediately and introduce changes only with caution and broad agreement. Perhaps we are mistaken and you’re right, but the price of a mistake by you could be a critical blow to democracy and to the economy."
Dov Kotler said that Bank Hapoalim had been seeing withdrawals of deposits recently, "but not on a large scale, and not necessarily by the technology industry."
According to participants, Netanyahu spoke for about half an hour, and explained that he saw the reform as part of a process of easing regulation that would actually boost the economy. He said that he had examined this in comparison with other countries that had introduced similar measures, and that the result had been a rise in GDP of 1-2%.
There followed questions from the participants. One of them said that in the short term the reform was certainly likely to lead to a downgrade in Israel’s credit rating and to a hit to government bonds. A technology investor spoke of the many enquiries he had received from other investors seeking to know what was happening, and whether their investments were at risk.
Several of the participants, including Chemi Peres, called on Netanyahu to open a dialogue. Netanyahu said in response that he was in favor, but that all that he had received so far was a demand to stop the process before anything else. He thus confirmed reports by "Globes" that such a demand had arisen in mediation talks, and had been rejected by him and Minister of Justice Yariv Levin.
"Will you agree to dialogue in a framework of a team or teams led by President Herzog?" Netanyahu was asked, and he responded positively.
The meeting, like statements released last week and the press conference that he held last Wednesday, indicate that the economic issue is the one that Netanyahu is the most attentive to, and that in that area he is making every effort to instill calm. The next stage will probably be semi-official talks in which proposals will be put forward for changes in the relationships between the different branches of government in Israel, in an attempt to find a formula that will express the need for change, versus the radical change in Levin’s reform plan.
There are already academic and legal teams working on such a formula. On the issues of an override clause enabling the Knesset to re-legislate laws struck down by the Supreme Court and the reasonableness test in judicial review of administrative decisions, the sides are not very far apart. The difficult issues are the status of legal advisers in government ministries and, the toughest issue of all, the method of appointing judges.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 29, 2023.
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