Blinken highlights the importance of the voice of civil society in the context of the controversial judicial reform in Israel

30 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, has highlighted this Monday from Israel the importance of the voice of civil society in the framework of the controversial judicial reform promoted by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Civil society has been present lately,” Blinken said, citing key democratic values, such as minority rights, the rule of law, press freedom or “the rights of people to make their voices heard,” according to has collected the newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’.

The US Secretary of State has thus stated that “generating consensus” in the different sectors of the population regarding new political proposals “is the most effective way of guaranteeing” that these “are adopted and endure”.

The controversial judicial reform presented by the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was received furiously by both the opposition and the Supreme Court itself and civil society, which took to the streets for consecutive days in protest.

The changes proposed by Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin could give the government control of the judicial selection committee, limit the authority of legal advisers and, above all, reduce the ability of the Supreme Court to revoke certain laws passed in Parliament. .

Blinken has also made reference in his appearance, and briefly, to the situation of tension between Israelis and Palestinians, assuring that the fact of expanding the Abraham Accords “would not be a substitute for peace” in the region. In this way, he has alluded that the best way to guarantee “security, freedom, justice and dignity” is through the two-State solution.

The US Secretary of State, after Israel arrived from Egypt, a previous stop on his tour, gave a press conference from Ben Gurion International Airport in which he also reiterated Washington’s position of “reducing tensions” between Israelis and Palestinians preserving the ‘status quo’.

IRANIAN NUCLEAR PLAN

Apart from the recent tensions in the region after the attack perpetrated on Friday in the Israeli settlement of Neve Yaakov, Blinken, who has met with Netanyahu, has also highlighted the importance of the “Iranian threat”.

“Most of the international community has seen the true face of Iran,” he said, adding that the two have had talks with the aim of establishing a “common policy” to “frustrate the danger” that Iran represents.

The Israeli prime minister has expressed himself in the same way, specifying on his Twitter account that he is working with Washington “to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons”, developing them or having the “means” to do so.

“We share common interests and values,” Netanyahu said with Blinken at a press conference. “We will continue to be, I assure you, two strong democracies,” he concluded.