Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on Sunday, less than a day after Gallant attempted to put the brakes on the PM’s controversial effort to overhaul the nation’s judiciary system. Massive protests soon broke out condemning the move.
Gallant was the first in Netanyahu’s cabinet to break ranks with the PM over his full-speed-ahead proposal to seize greater control over the selection of Supreme Court justices and restrict the court’s power over the Knesset. The plan has been condemned both internationally and domestically, driving a wedge between the PM’s office and the military.
The defense minister warned that the unrest over the PM’s planned power-grab was putting Israel’s national security at risk, and that therefore he could not support it. “The rift within our society is widening and penetrating the Israeli Defense Forces,” causing “a clear and immediate and tangible danger to the security of the state,” Gallant declared in a televised speech on Saturday. “I shall not be a party to this.”