Likud MK Tally Gotliv claimed on Monday that the government’s efforts to reform the judiciary, which had been put on hold for dialogue with opposition parties, was “dead” and will not be resumed.
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“There’s an elephant in the room, no one is talking about the reform. We’ve failed, we must correct course and figure out where it is going,” she told attendants at the ruling party’s first faction meeting of the Knesset’s summer session.
When pressed about the meaning of her remarks, Gotliv stated that “the reform is dead” and “will not happen”, drawing ire from several fellow Likud lawmakers.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, argued that the legislation “is not dead” and called to “exhaust” the ongoing dialogue with opposition parties at the President’s Residence.
“We’re not facing an elephant, but a herd of elephants,” Netanyahu replied. “Don’t tell me that the [reform] has been sidelined. It wasn’t. There are some actions being taken, and I do not want to specify what they are. Like in military operations, I cannot expand.
Something might be achieved here, or we might need to take other actions. I do not want to say anything at this moment. We are trying to exhaust the process."
Gotliv, a Knesset freshman, has attracted much media attention over her short stint in the Israeli parliament for her colorful statements.
Last month, the far-right firebrand accused the Israeli left of “betraying the State of Israel” during a rally in support of the judicial reform in the central city of Netanya.
"You know what differentiates us from the people on the left? The left has lost it, the left betrayed the State of Israel, the left forgot the most basic values of the people of Israel and a Jewish and democratic state," Gotliv told a crowd of few hundred supporters.
Gotliv also drew wide criticism in February after she accused Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut of inciting a deadly terrorist attack that claimed the lives of three Israelis.
"I blame the Supreme Court chief justice for the terror attack. I blame her for the chaos in Israel, and for destroying democracy and the rule of law," Gotliv wrote in an incensed Twitter post.