Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday that his government will “take practical steps to reform the justice system” as early as this week after negotiations on the controversial legal plan with opposition parties at the President’s Residence collapsed last week.
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Speaking at the opening of the weekly Cabinet meeting, the Likud chairman said that those steps will be taken "in a responsible and measured manner," but "in accordance with the mandate we received."
Netanyahu blamed Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz for the breakdown of talks. "What was proven last week is that Gantz and Lapid played games with me. It was a charade of talks for three months, but the intention was to stall for time," he said.
Both opposition leaders announced their pullout from the talks after the coalition reneged on past agreements and unsuccessfully attempted to push back a vote on the makeup of the committee for the selection of judges.
Lapid responded on Twitter: "If Netanyahu proceeds with the one-sided judicial overhaul as he declared, he will discover that he is the prime minister of less than half of the Israeli people, with less than half of the economy, less than half of the security and less than half of the Knesset."