IDF's intel official 'warned' Netanyahu of security risks posed by judicial overhaul

A top intel official reportedly warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the threat posed by his judicial overhaul plans that encouraged Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas to take military action against Israel. Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Brigadier General Amit Saar, the head of the Israel Defense Forces Military (IDF) Intelligence Research Department, saying that he had first appealed to Netanyahu on March 19, a week before Knesset was due to approve the judicial overhaul bill. This was also the time when Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was fired for calling to pause the overhaul. Saar sent a second letter to the Israeli prime minister on July 16, a week before the parliament approved the reasonableness bill curtailing the judiciary’s review powers. “All the players in the [security] system note that Israel is in a serious, unprecedented crisis, which threatens its cohesion and weakens it. For our main enemies — Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas — this weakness is an expression of a linear process ending with Israel’s collapse, and the current situation is an opportunity to accelerate and deepen its troubles," Saar wrote in his first letter. The intel officer also warned that political divisions within Israel were leading the country “to try to refrain from a security escalation, and allowing the risks against it to grow.” What is Israel’s new law on judicial overhaul? Earlier this year, Israel’s Parliament passed a  new legislation that rolled back some Supreme Court powers. At the time, Netanyahu said the changes were needed to rein in an over-interventionist court, but critics accused him of authoritarianism. The new legislation is an amendment that removes one, but not all, of the tools the Supreme Court has for quashing government and ministers’ decisions. Up until now, if the court deemed an executive decision “unreasonable”, it could void it. Once the bill is in effect, judges will no longer be able to do this, though they will still be able to rule against the government based on other legal grounds. With inputs from agencies