MK warns Israel losing US support at UN

Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has warned of losing the United States’ support for Israel at the United Nations, over a controversial judicial reform proposal.

“The Americans talk to me all the time and they are horrified by what is happening,” Lapid said in an interview with Kan Public Radio.

Lapid refuted claims that Washington interferes in Israel’s internal affairs and said,  “We ask the US to interfere [in our affairs] every day, from aid to funding the Iron Dome. The Americans say clearly that our alliance is based on our shared democratic values, and if you don’t maintain them, then the alliance will end.”

Lapid was commenting on criticism of the US Ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, who said the Biden Administration has called on the Israeli government to slow down its planned judicial reforms.

Over the weekend, Ambassador Nides said on CNN’s “The Axe Files” podcast that, while the United States will not tell and dictate to Israel how it picks its Supreme Court, he said the one thing that binds Washington and Tel Aviv is a “sense of democracy and a sense of democratic institution”.

“That’s how we defend Israel at the UN; that’s how we stand up for the values that we share,” he added.

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