By Staff, Agencies

“Israeli” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Thursday that the entity would enter “uncharted territory” should the Supreme Court strike down his hardline coalition’s highly contentious “reasonableness law” that passed amid widespread opposition and intense protests on Monday, and that he hopes “we don’t get to that.”

The premier also claimed he has no intention of removing Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara from her position, amid mounting calls from his right flank to do so and a bill submitted on Thursday, and quickly retracted, by a Likud lawmaker, and indicated that he plans to use the new “reasonableness law” to reappoint Aryeh Deri, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, as a minister.

“It depends what happens, of course, with the legislation, we have to see. But if it stands, I expect it to happen,” Netanyahu said in response to a direct question by NPR Thursday about whether he would seek to reappoint Deri.

The court had used the “reasonableness claus”e in a bombshell decision that Deri’s appointment as interior and health minister was “unreasonable in the extreme” due to his criminal convictions, most recently for tax fraud in 2022, and forced Netanyahu to remove him from his roles.

Bibi gave separate interviews to US media on Thursday, downplaying the effects of his government’s divisive judicial overhaul, saying the first law passed in the “legislative” package was a “minor correction”.

In a sit-down with CNN, Netanyahu refused to say whether he would abide by any potential ruling overturning the “reasonableness law”, which prevents judicial oversight of government and ministerial decisions on the grounds of reasonableness.

“What you’re talking about is a situation, or potential situation, where in American terms, the United States’ Supreme Court would take a constitutional amendment and say that it’s unconstitutional. That’s the kind of the kind of spiral that you’re talking about, and I hope we don’t get to that,” Netanyahu responded to CNN, warning that it could mean entering “unchartered territory.”