Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Arab countries are still interested in becoming closer with Israel, despite a string of controversial statements by members of the government, in an interview with CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday.
"The prime minister of Israel sees a lot of things below the surface...I'm telling you now, with this coalition, [I see things] under the surface that we are going to have, because of this interest that Arab countries have [in partnering] with Israel, I think you're going to be surprised, maybe sooner than you think," said Netanyahu.
The prime minister added that he believes that a lot of his allies in the government have changed over time and stressed that "the important thing to understand is that they joined me, I didn't join them. We are by far the largest party in the Knesset and certainly in the coalition. The mainstream policies are decided by me."
Netanyahu says he doesn't want Knesset to be able to overcome all Supreme Court decisions
Netanyahu additionally addressed continuing protests against the judicial reform proposed by his government, claiming that he has stated that he is against a "blanket ability of the parliament to overcome Supreme Court decisions, just as we don't accept that the Supreme Court can abrogate any decision by the parliament or the government."
In response to questions about comments US President Joe Biden made against the reform, the prime minister stated that he does not think anything will get in the way of the relationship between him and Biden and stressed that this is "an internal matter that we need to resolve."