Drama at Knesset as coalition plows ahead with legislation
The Times of Israel Daily Briefing
The Times of Israel
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.
Political correspondent Ariela Karmel and reporter Amy Spiro join host Jessica Steinberg for today's episode.
It's been an intensive week for lawmakers, reports Karmel, as the government begins dissolving the Knesset to trigger earlier elections and accelerates several controversial pieces of legislation. Karmel discusses the attorney general bill, a final effort by the right-leaning coalition to remove what remains of the only checks and balances on executive power in Israel.
Another element of the attorney general legislation is intended to allow elected officials to operate with less scrutiny, says Karmel, making it more difficult to open investigations or indictments against a prime minister or cabinet members.
After singer Noam Bettan garnered second place in the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night, Spiro discusses the surprising result, given the intensive politics behind the competition, with several countries that dropped out of the contest in protest of Israel's participation.
If Bettan had won first place, Spiro notes that it would have complicated decisions about having Israel host the Eurovision next year, but notes that the song contest has survived other wars, boycotts and geopolitical dramas.
Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.
For further reading:
MKs vote to advance bills splitting and weakening role of AG, making it harder to indict PM
New bill aims to make it harder to indict senior officials, including PM, ministers
Smotrich attacks AG, rule of law in dramatic Knesset committee hearing
Defying predictions, Eurovision juries gave Israel a boost amid voting reforms
Israel’s Noam Bettan finishes second at Eurovision as Bulgaria takes the win
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IMAGE: Political correspondent Ariela Karmel joins host Jessica Steinberg for today's Daily Briefing. (ToI)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, welcome to the Times Visuals Daily Briefing. It's Wednesday, May 20th. I'm Jessica Steinberg, |
| 0:09.4 | here today with political correspondent Arella Carmel and off-camera at the moment, but she'll be joining us soon, |
| 0:16.0 | reporter and editor, Amy Spiro. Thanks for being with me today, Ariela. Thanks for having me. |
| 0:21.2 | Absolutely. |
| 0:21.8 | And before we get started, a short note. |
| 0:24.4 | Now until the end of the month, until the end of May, you can support the Times of Israel's |
| 0:28.1 | work and receive one of our amazing tote bags when you join the Times of Israel community |
| 0:34.1 | at Times of Israel.com slash join. |
| 0:37.4 | Okay. Back to our podcast. It is literally right now a very |
| 0:42.0 | contentioned stay in the Knesset. There is a preliminary vote that would dissolve the Knesset, |
| 0:48.1 | trigger early elections. We'll discuss the latest raft of legislation that's being pushed through. |
| 0:54.2 | Arellella will explain to us what could happen, what won't happen. |
| 0:58.1 | But the bills include readings on bills that would curtail the power of the Attorney General |
| 1:04.7 | and make it harder to indict high-ranking government officials. |
| 1:08.8 | There's other legislation that's going on today, but we'll focus on that, which was all happening yesterday. |
| 1:13.7 | We're also going to talk with Amy about the Eurovision Song Contest last week |
| 1:18.5 | and the second place win of Israel's Noam Bitan for his song, Michelle, |
| 1:23.9 | and really what the geopolitics around that |
| 1:27.1 | and what happened to bring him up to second place. |
| 1:29.8 | So stay with us for all of that. |
| 1:39.7 | Israel became the startup nation by turning talent into strength, ideas into industries. |
| 1:46.1 | For more than a century, the Technion has trained the engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs |
... |
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