In a speech in the Knesset plenum on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assailed the “deep state” for launching what he claimed were baseless criminal investigations into him and his close circle.
Speaking to the opposition, Netanyahu said, “You who engage in divisive incitement and say terrible things about us, that we are sending the hostages to their deaths, you who incite so wildly, you accuse us of division. What hypocrisy."
"The more desperate you become, the more scandals you create. The people are not stupid. Most of the people see everything that is happening here, the cooperation between the bureaucracy, the deep state, [which] in the United States, did not succeed. And it will not succeed here either.”
“Once, when an investigation was opened, people said: Wow, this is serious. Today they ask: Who have they targeted? I do not bow my head. I am not deterred. I will continue to demand an objective and balanced Commission of Inquiry, I will continue to work for absolute victory and the future of the coming generations,” Netanyahu said.
The speech came as part of a debate known as the “40 signatories’ debate,” which is the Israeli version of the British “Prime Minister’s Question”. The official topic of the debate was the government’s refusal to form a State Commission of Inquiry.
Netanyahu said that he would only form a committee of inquiry that “enjoyed the trust of the majority of the people,” arguing that a State Commission of Inquiry whose members are appointed by the Supreme Court Chief Justice would not be politically objective.
Netanyahu argued that the entire law enforcement apparatus was skewed against him. He brought as proof the fact that law enforcement had not investigated alleged ties between former prime minister Ehud Barak and criminal financier Jeffrey Epstein; an alleged leak of a document from the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee by Democrats MK Gila Kariv; and what he claimed were calls by Democrats chairman Yair Golan on IDF soldiers to refuse to serve due to the 2023 judicial reforms.
The prime minister’s comments echoed remarks he made in 2020 at the start of his criminal trial. He is currently standing witness in that trial. A series of investigations into his immediate surroundings in recent months included alleged attempts by his wife, Sarah Netanyahu, to intimidate witnesses in the trial; a leak of a top-secret document to a German newspaper by a member of his media team; alleged commercial ties between three media advisors and Qatari state organs, and more.
The prime minister’s comments came while dozens of family members of civilians and soldiers killed on October 7 and the ensuing war waved pictures of their loved ones and demanded a State Commission of Inquiry.
The family members were allowed into the visitor’s section after a prolonged confrontation in the hallway outside of the plenum, in which guards and police officers used force to block them from entering. They were eventually allowed in. The family members shouted from the visitors section, but their shouts were muted and ineligible due to the thick bulletproof glass barrier.
Opposition Leader MK Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) responded with a speech of his own, demanding that the government apologize for its failures.
“There has never been a government here that has so many reasons to apologize. One thousand eight hundred and fifty dead; apologize to them. 79 kidnapped and murdered, apologize to them. 14,000 injured, apologize to them,” Lapid said.
“A whole country, hurting, anxious, angry, abandoned by a government that takes no responsibility for anything. Apologize to them. A government that shattered security, shattered the economy, shattered our social cohesion, our mutual responsibility, and didn't even bother to apologize,” Lapid said.
'Proper tool for investigating October 7'
Following the debate, the United Right party chaired by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said in a statement that its party’s position was that “the proper tool for investigating the events of October 7 and what led to them is a state commission of inquiry. This position has been reiterated by the ministers and Knesset members of the movement time and again.”
“Furthermore, the party chairman, Minister Gideon Sa'ar, proposed in the government meeting on the subject to amend the law in a way that would allow the government to determine that the person who appoints the state commission of inquiry would be one of the presidents of the Supreme Court or the vice presidents, past or present,” the party continued.
“This proposal, on the one hand, would realize the principle of independence and the appointment of committee members not by the government. On the other hand, it would allow for more than one option as the current law suggests, which would increase the public's trust in the committee that will be established,” the party concluded.
