Coalition Chairman MK Ofir Katz revealed in an interview with Makor Rishon that immediately after the massacres of October 7, 2023, attempts were made within the Likud Party to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Shortly after October 7, while Netanyahu was thinking about how to change the face of the Middle East, there were those thinking about how to change the face of Likud’s leadership. There were people in Likud who worked to depose Netanyahu - I know there was an attempt to go for his replacement. Various people wanted it, and thankfully, they didn’t succeed,” Katz said.
He also criticized President Isaac Herzog, accusing the president of advancing political agendas. “Most of the time, he suddenly becomes very active in certain situations. You saw who applauded his speech in the plenum. It would have been expected to hear him not only regarding Justice Amit, but also when the Knesset is being undermined, when Knesset laws are canceled, when the convening of the Judicial Selection Committee is forced upon us. The president shouldn’t only protect the Chief Justice. What happened - someone didn’t call him by name? There are much more substantial issues here. More than half the nation would expect him to respond to these things too, to defend the Knesset. After all, the Knesset represents the public - the people sent us here. More than half the nation hears him defending the judiciary and remaining silent when the Knesset is harmed, when our laws are overturned, and when we’re prevented from doing our job. That’s not how a president should behave.”
He added, “Yes. When you ignore the trampling of the Knesset and choose to be aggressive only in response to our reactions toward them, you’re taking a political side.”
Katz continued by criticizing Supreme Court President Justice Yitzhak Amit: “For us, Amit is not the president of the Supreme Court. He was chosen through force, as they’re used to doing and behaving toward the Knesset and the government. The Prime Minister wanted to respond and say, ‘You don’t recognize us as prime minister, as ministers, as MKs,’ and he started his remarks that way to get to the main point: ‘You keep saying, ‘Look how you behave’ - look at yourselves and see how you behave toward the other branches of government.’ I don’t think he meant to say, ‘Yes, he’s the Supreme Court president, I recognize him as such.’ His emphasis was: ‘You don’t respect us, you don’t see us.’”