PRESIDENTIAL SUMMIT

“America’s commitment to Israel is firm, and it is ironclad,” US President Joe Biden told President Isaac Herzog in the Oval Office on July 18, adding that he had said the same thing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call a day earlier, in which he invited Netanyahu to Washington for a meeting. However, Biden later told The New York Times op-ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman that Israel’s leaders should not rush the judiciary overhaul but rather seek the broadest possible consensus, warning that the issue could harm “the special relationship” between the two countries. For his part, Herzog told Biden that he was seeking to find common ground between the parties, a sentiment he echoed in an address to a joint session of the US Congress the next day. “I know our democracy is strong and resilient. Israel has democracy in its DNA,” Herzog declared in a speech that elicited 29 standing ovations.

KNESSET PROTEST 

Tens of thousands marched from Tel Aviv to the Knesset in Jerusalem in a bid to prevent the passage of a bill to curtail judicial oversight set for a vote on July 24. Some 10,000  IDF reservists announced at a news conference on July 22 that they would suspend reserve duty, joining over 1,000 Israeli Air Force reservists who made a similar declaration in a letter issued the previous day. On July 22, dozens of former top security officials sent a letter to the prime minister  in support of the reservists, urging the government to halt its judicial reforms and resume negotiations to reach a national consensus.

PREMIER PACEMAKER 

Prime Minister Netanyahu was fitted with a pacemaker at Sheba Medical Center on July 23, a week after he was hospitalized for dehydration and had a heart monitor implanted. The Prime Minister’s Office said Netanyahu, 73, was “doing great” after a successful procedure. On the eve of the Knesset vote on the “reasonableness”  billl, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the architect of the reforms, filled in as acting premier. 
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