US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides said last week that the Biden administration is telling Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to slow down his government’s planned changes to Israel’s judicial system. Speaking on CNN’s The Axe Files podcast, Nides said: ” That’s what we’re doing now, we’re telling the prime minister, as I tell my kids, pump the brakes, slow down, try to get a consensus, bring the parties together. It’s very complicated, they’re trying to do things way too fast and pump the brakes. Slow down.” Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli (Likud) responded to Nides’ comments on Reshet Bet on Sunday morning, saying: “I say to the US ambassador: ‘Pump the brakes yourself, and mind your own business.’ Chikli even said the last half of the sentence: ‘Mind your own business’ in English to ensure Nides understood his message. “We’d be happy to debate with you in international or security affairs, but respect our democracy,” Chikli added. Netanyahu responded in a more diplomatic manner, saying at Sunday’s cabinet meeting: “I reassure our friends: Israel was and will remain a strong and thriving democracy, an independent democracy.” Chairman of the Knesset’s Consitution and Law Committee Simcha Rothman responded to the ambassador’s comments by scoffing at his lack of knowledge of what the planned judicial reforms entail. Speaking on Army Radio on Sunday, Rothman said: “If you ask the US ambassador to explain why it’s so scary for Israel’s elected officials to choose their judges like every other democracy in the word, he’d stammer.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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