MK Danny Danon joined Israel National News in the Knesset building today and said that he is very disturbed by the approach taken by both sides of the political spectrum with regard to the reforms in Israel's judicial system.
"I am very worried because we are only at the beginning of the road. There will be significant legislation and reforms, because we promised the voters to lead a change and we are determined to carry it out. In the meantime we are degenerating into negative statements from both sides. It started with the opposition on the part of the former defense minister who talked about civil war - a concept that should not be used at all - and unfortunately also continued with the statements of members of the coalition who talked about the arrest of members of the Knesset. This is unacceptable," says Danon.
He adds, "Everything can be debated, we will do everything in a balanced way after hearing the different opinions, and we will keep the promises to the voters."
He calls on the opposition to work to minimize inflammatory statements. "The role of the opposition is to criticize the government and that's fine. The question is what words are chosen and what discourse is created. It's legitimate to take to the streets - we also did it and the public had its say. The majority of the public in Israel believes in our way and we don't get excited, but we need to be more civilized. This is not the first time that the Knesset has seen differences of opinion. We have gone through all the crises in the past and we will go through this too."
Danon also commented on the criticism leveled at the reforms by former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak. "Aharon Barak has no official position and the words he used were toxic and did not contribute to the discussion and conversation. Everyone should be heard, but there are those who harm our ability to move forward as a society. When we harm each other, it weakens our strength as a society."
Danon announced this week that he will advance legislation to apply sovereignty over the Jordan Valley. "We were very close to applying sovereignty, but unfortunately the issue fell off the agenda. However, we did not commit to never applying it. I propose to take the first step and apply sovereignty to the Jordan Valley first, a step that members of the opposition have also supported this in the past. I am pursuing this move seriously and putting effort into it. The goal is to form a broad consensus. The Jordan Valley will in any case remain under Israel's sovereignty and the national government should lead this move."