Avigdor Liberman and Benjamin Netanyahu on a poster calling for social justice, 2012. Wikicommons/Oren Rozen. Some rights reserved.
As Israel faced increasing tensions at the Gaza border fence, with the Iranian nuclear deal, and with Iran’s proxies in Syria, the Israeli Parliament passed an amended text to the Basic Law enabling “under extreme circumstance” the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister to wage war alone. It thus removes the requirements for the government’s full approval of large-scale military operations.
The legislation, approved by 62 votes in favour and 41 against, passed while Prime Minister Netanyahu was regaling the media with the results of the Israeli intelligence investigation into Iran’s nuclear prospects. But one of the law’s main inspirers – former national security advisor Yaakov Amidror – insisted that speculation about the two events being interrelated were unfounded.
