Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismisses Biden's criticism of judicial reform

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is dismissing President Biden's calls to drop his judicial reform plan. On Tuesday, President Biden warned Israel, quote, cannot continue down this road. Netanyahu then tweeted the country will, quote, make decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends. The Israeli Prime Minister decided to delay the judicial overhaul proposal earlier this week. For now, mass protests across the nation have subsided after what has been weeks of chaos. CBS News foreign correspondent MTS Tayyab is in Tel Aviv. He's been following this story for us.

MTS, good to see you. So in another tweet, Netanyahu called Israel's relationship with the U.S. unshakeable. But there's a lot of people wondering now if relations can remain strong, if Netanyahu's government actually does move forward with the judicial reform. Lana, you're all good to be with you. Yeah, you're right.

He's calling this relationship unshakeable. But even people here in Israel are saying things are looking very shaky. In fact, you have the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, saying within three months, this extreme far right coalition, which Mr. Netanyahu leads as Prime Minister, has in his words, quote, ruined the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. U.

S. and Israel, of course, are countries with extremely close ties. But very rarely have you ever had a U.S. president speak as plainly as Mr. Biden did when talking about or commenting on a domestic issue in Israel. And even more rarely have you had an Israeli Prime Minister speak the way Mr.

Netanyahu did in the aftermath of that. Now, it does appear that Mr. Netanyahu is trying to walk back a little bit. In fact, he was addressing the summit of democracy, which is a State Department organized event remotely. Again, reiterating the closeness of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

But when you consider the fact the vice president, Kamala Harris, has also said that she's very concerned about the situation in Israel when it comes to this judicial overhaul. Again, speaking quite plainly, this is uncharted territory for this country and more importantly for this relationship. Lana, Erol. And so MTA is considering that this is really uncharted territory. As you mentioned, what's the latest on this reform plan and its, I guess, suspension? And how is the Prime Minister in speaking with the politicians who oppose this judicial overhaul? Yeah, Mr. Netanyahu using the word pause and most people, many Israelis, especially those who have taken to the streets in their masses to voice their opposition to it say they don't believe this is a pause at all. They don't believe that Mr.

Netanyahu will, in good faith, sit down with the opposition and negotiate a way forward, negotiate some sort of reform, some sort of overhaul that would meet both sides' needs, which is to say so many Israelis do not want to see what this current plan does, which would effectively gut the Supreme Court. Now, why is that so significant beyond the Supreme Court is a very important check for any country. But you have to consider the makeup of Israel's government. It's levers of powers. It's checks and balances. Unlike the U.S.

where you have Congress, you have the Senate, you have the Supreme Court. And some would even go as far as saying you have the U.S. Constitution as a check on the executive. Here in Israel, it's very different. You essentially have lawmakers and the Supreme Court. This is a country which does not have a formal constitution.

It does not have a second chamber. And so really, for the 75 years of this country's existence, and it will be celebrating 75 years in about six weeks from now, that one check, that crucial check, is really under threat. And that's why so many people are fighting this reform. Now, in terms of whether or not you have opposition figures and the government, which has been described as the most extreme far right, have come together to really try to hash things out, not a lot has really happened since then. And the concern is, is that not a lot will happen when this will pick up again. And many believe that after the Passover holiday and indeed Holocaust Remembrance Day and this 75th anniversary of this country, which are all sort of in tandem with each other in around April, that this will start again and we'll really see a lot of tension again on the streets of this country. But as I've been saying, or as we've been seeing, these protests still continuing, much smaller, but still continuing.

Good to have you watching all of that for us MTS. Thank you.

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