Last-minute drama: While voting on the law to reduce the measure of reasonableness in the Knesset plenum, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich pushes for a compromise - and tries to lead last-minute agreements in the plenum. The compromise effort comes after feverish discussions in the prime minister's office throughout the day.
According to the reports, Smotrich is trying to formulate a postponement of the legislation on the appointment of judges for a period of more than six months. Defense Minister Yoav Galant and Education Minister Yoav Kish are also pushing to reach compromises - with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supporting this and asking to see the reservations to see if this can be done. On the other hand, it was reported that ministers Yariv Levin, Itamar Ben Gvir and Shlomo Karai are strongly opposed.
As noted, throughout the night the negotiations between the representatives of the coalition and the opposition continued - mediated by members of the President's House - in a last attempt to postpone the legislation in favor of a comprehensive compromise. The effort is focused on finding a softened version on the measure of reasonableness, in exchange for a commitment to postpone the rest of the legal reform for a period of at least a year.
However, just before the vote it was reported that the negotiations had failed after the Likud did not agree to embed in legislation the duration of the moratorium on the reform. The head of the opposition, Yair Lapid, said that "it is impossible to reach an agreement with this government. In the last few weeks, we made every effort, but we had conditions - first of all, to preserve Israeli democracy. What they want to do is to dismantle the state, democracy and security with Israel. Therefore, there is no way to continue dealing with them because this is the most irresponsible government that has ever existed."
