Israeli Consul General in New York recalled over comments about judicial reform

An Israeli diplomat in the United States has been recalled to Jerusalem after he told hundreds of people that he was “concerned” about Israel’s direction.

Asaf Zamir, a former deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, is currently Israel’s Consul General in New York. He was appointed to the post in 2021 by former Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid, who is now the opposition leader.

Zamir was summoned back to the Israeli capital by the Foreign Ministry this weekend after his comments at a fundraising dinner were reported by the Walla! news site.

“I am deeply concerned about the direction the country is going in right now,” he reportedly said to widespread applause. “If we want to have a national home, and we want it to be everyone’s home, we really must be democratic.”

He was talking about the current Israeli government’s controversial 2023 judicial reform bill, which lets Israeli lawmakers override senior Israeli judges, if they were to rule that a new law is unconstitutional.

Zamir, who once worked for the Israeli Air Force, supported former IDF chief Benny Gantz’s leadership bid and briefly served as a minister under an earlier Netanyahu government in 2020.

His uncle, Yitzhak Zamir, was a Supreme Court judge.