Israeli President Isaac Herzog confronted a group of protesters against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial reforms on Wednesday and told them to seek dialogue with their opponents — whereupon they refused and told him to stop the reforms.
The exchange was captured on camera in the mountain town of Zichron Yaakov, where Herzog was visiting a naval commando base. Protesters have hounded Netanyahu, but have tended to leave Israel’s ceremonial president, a former leftist, alone.
Instead of ignoring the protesters, Herzog — and his extensive security detail — walked across a parking lot to engage with the demonstrators. He told them — as he insisted in public — that there needed to be dialogue between left and right. They refused:
הנשיא הרצוג יצא לשוחח עם מפגינים מחוץ לאירוע שבו היה בזכרון יעקב@yanircozin pic.twitter.com/hB7fzgba9v
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) August 9, 2023
The Times of Israel reported:
The demonstrators demanded Herzog take action to “protect the judicial system,” while he asked them to get behind efforts to reach a compromise between the government and the opposition.
The sustained, nationwide protest movement has regularly targeted government ministers, but has rarely directed fire at the president, who is meant to be an apolitical figure. Herzog has pushed the coalition and opposition to compromise on the government’s divisive legislative package, and hosted unsuccessful negotiations at his official residence. No negotiations are currently taking place.
…
“I’m insisting that everyone needs to come to the President’s Residence to hold talks, and if not at the President’s Residence, then anywhere else,” Herzog told the protesters.
A demonstrator objected to Herzog dealing with the Netanyahu government. Another said: “You need to take action today.”
As Breitbart News has reported, Netanyahu is seeking reforms to bring Israel’s extraordinarily powerful judiciary in line with standard practice in democracies like the United States, where the power of judges is checked somewhat by the legislature.
Concerns about the effects of the controversy have grown, as Israel’s military has been affected by reservists who are protesting by refusing to show up for duty. Netanyahu has offered to pare back his proposals, but the opposition has rejected all of his reforms.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.