Smotrich vows to ‘trample’ Supreme Court president in blistering attack |
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed to “trample” Supreme Court President Isaac Amit and called him a “violent megalomaniac,” in a scathing attack on Monday that drew widespread condemnation.
Speaking to reporters at the Knesset before a faction meeting for his Religious Zionism party, the far-right minister said that Amit “has an extreme lack of awareness, is doing things in the court that have never been done before, and the result is that we will trample him. There won’t be a choice.”
Amit, he said, was “a violent megalomaniac who is stealing Israeli democracy,” and vowed to “trample him.”
Smotrich added that while he wished he could reach a compromise with the court, “when one side becomes so extreme, it leaves you no option but to fight back with everything you’ve got.”
The minister has long supported his government’s attempts to curtail the powers of the judiciary and has repeatedly attacked the High Court and Amit specifically, often accusing them of undermining democracy when they were at odds with the government’s policies.
Amit is being boycotted by Justice Minister Yariv Levin as part of the wider judicial overhaul, which was launched in January 2023, soon after........