Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded defiantly on Wednesday to sharp criticism from President Biden over his government’s contentious judicial overhaul plan, declaring that Israel was “a sovereign country” that would make its own decisions.

As weeks of quiet diplomatic pressure burst into a rare open dispute between the allies, Netanyahu’s opponents in Israel accused him of endangering the longstanding and critical relationship with the US that could harm the country’s ability to face daunting security challenges, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“I have known President Biden for over 40 years, and I appreciate his longstanding commitment to Israel,” Netanyahu said in a statement posted in English on Twitter. But, he added, “Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.”

Netanyahu’s remarks, first issued by his office at the unusual time of about 1am in Israel, came after Biden told reporters that he was “very concerned” about the events in Israel. The President’s comments came after suggestions on Tuesday by the US ambassador to Israel that Netanyahu would be welcome in Washington sometime soon.

But Biden made it clear that a much-coveted invitation was not about to be issued. When asked whether Netanyahu would be invited to the White House, the President replied bluntly: “No. Not in the near term.” The hard-Right coalition led by Netanyahu has sought to exert more political control over Israel’s Supreme Court, setting off the worst domestic crisis in decades.

“They cannot continue down this road — I’ve sort of made that clear,” Biden said. “Hopefully the Prime Minister will act in a way that he can try to work out some genuine compromise, but that remains to be seen.”

The extraordinary exchange came after Netanyahu on Monday delayed his effort to push the judicial plan through parliament to allow for dialogue, and hours after negotiating teams for the government coalition and the opposition held a preliminary meeting hosted by Israel’s mostly ceremonial President, Isaac Herzog.

The judicial overhaul has divided the country between those who see it as a power grab by the ruling majority that will destroy Israeli democracy and those mainly on the right who have long viewed the Supreme Court as overactive and want to give more power to the elected legislature.

The plan set off weeks of mass protests and turmoil, culminating in a nationwide work stoppage that brought many services to a halt and snarled air traffic on Monday after Netanyahu summarily dismissed his defence minister, who had called for a delay in the legislation to allow for talks and compromise.

Netanyahu’s announcement of the delay largely calmed the stormy atmosphere in Israel.

But opponents of the judicial overhaul plan remain wary of Netanyahu’s motives, not least because the Prime Minister is standing trial on corruption charges. Critics say he could ultimately use the planned judicial changes to extricate himself from his legal troubles. Netanyahu insists that he has no such intention and denies wrongdoing.

Organisers of the main weekly anti-government protests have urged people not to give up and warned that the announcement of a delay was a tactic only meant to quell the civil unrest.

Experts say that the most contentious part of the bill — which gives the governing coalition more influence over the selection of Supreme Court judges and allows it to choose the next President of the top court — could be brought any time for quick final approval in parliament.

“We are one afternoon away” from the completion of “the most important part of the judicial overhaul”, said Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a non-partisan research group that opposes the coalition’s plan and is involved in the efforts to find a broader consensus and compromise.

The delay of the plan had also been expected to ease tensions with Washington.

But Biden’s blunt remarks indicated that the US remained guarded about Netanyahu’s plans and would wait to see the outcome of the negotiations in Israel in the coming weeks.

New York Times News Service