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00:00Joining me now from Tel Aviv is Itamar Rabinovich, founder and president of the Israel Institute
00:05and former ambassador of Israel to the US.
00:07Thank you so much for your time.
00:10This attempt believed to be sparked by a rare public intervention from Ronan Barr's predecessor
00:16Nadav Agaman, who said he might reveal further accusations of wrongdoing by the Prime Minister
00:23if he believed that Netanyahu was about to break the law.
00:25For people outside of Israel, this very public row among intelligence chiefs is unheard of,
00:33is it not?
00:34It's a very high point.
00:38We had a major crisis with the Shin Bet in the 1980s, known as Bass 300.
00:47It was a major issue at the time, but it does not even come close to what we have now because
00:54we are now very close to a constitutional crisis.
01:00There will be appeals to the Supreme Court, injunctions to the Supreme Court, against
01:05the imminent firing of Ronan Barr.
01:09If the court tells the government that the Prime Minister is in a conflict of interest
01:15and cannot move ahead with this, and if the Prime Minister declines to accept the ruling
01:21by the Supreme Court, the country will be deep in a constitutional crisis.
01:27This is unprecedented.
01:29And how do you think the Israeli public are going to respond?
01:33Israeli public is divided.
01:34About half the public supports the government, about half the public, maybe a little more
01:38than half, is against the government, critical of the government.
01:45There will be, or there is planned, a massive demonstration against the government on Wednesday
01:51in Jerusalem.
01:53We need to see how many people will show up and what impact the protest will have.
01:59In this case, the protest, which had stopped the judicial revolution earlier, is now less
02:10effective.
02:12This may be the spark that will bring new life to the protest movement.
02:17We have yet to see.
02:18Now, Israeli judiciary, media, and anyone who seems to be critical of Netanyahu ends
02:24up being in direct line of fire, don't they?
02:29Is the Israeli judiciary strong enough, in your opinion, to stand up to this latest attempt?
02:35I think it is.
02:39We cannot but think also about the comparison to and the impact by what is happening in
02:46the United States.
02:47And this is not just a theoretical comparison, because Mr. Netanyahu came back from a visit
02:53to the United States, saw its close quarters, what President Trump has been doing, and we
03:00all feel that he's asking himself, why can I, can I not do what Trump is doing with impunity
03:07in the United States?
03:09Let alone that the similar phenomena happening in European countries seems to be a larger
03:15trend, this drift towards authoritarianism and a slight view of the rule of law.
03:23Israel is not an isolated island.
03:25How worried are you for the future of Israel?
03:31I'm concerned.
03:32I'm not worried.
03:33I think Israel demonstrated a lot of vitality.
03:39It suffered a major, major blow in October 7 and rebounded.
03:44Israeli civil society was strong enough to stop the judicial coup in 2023.
03:52And there are so many good, strong, healthy elements in Israel that I'm not worried about
03:58the country's future.
04:00But there is a very stiff fight ahead.
04:02Itamar Rabinovich, we're going to have to leave it there.
04:05Thank you so much.
04:06Thank you for having me.