Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a significant part of the judicial reform was “out,” as he aims for wider consensus on the legislation, speaking to the Wall Street Journal, the Israeli leader also responded on other pertinent topics.

“I’m attentive to the public pulse, and to what I think will pass muster,” said Netanyahu. But, after he “pushed the pause button,” the opposition “couldn’t agree to the most minimal” agreement. 

During his interview with WSJ, Netanyahu announced a provision to allow the parliament to overturn Supreme Court rulings was “out.” In addition, the part of the legislation that would give the coalition more power in the appointment of judges would also be revised. 

The prime minister concluded that he wanted the changes to “stick for a generation” by finding a middle ground, and continued onto another increasingly difficult topic on the world stage - supplying Ukraine with arms. He said, “we have concerns that I don’t think any of the Western allies of Ukraine have.” 

Netanyahu brought up the concern of maintaining “freedom of action” in Syria, where Russian forces are present to support the Damascus government. He also said that there was a risk of Israeli weaponry being captured by Iran on the Ukraine battlefield.

“If that system were to fall into the hands of Iran, then millions of Israelis would be left defenseless and imperiled,” Netanyahu said.

He added that the relationship between Iran and Russia is “very disturbing” and “we’ve made our concerns known to the Russians.”

The Israeli prime minister went on to say that he expected to meet U.S. President Joe Biden, stating that “the security cooperation, the military cooperation and the intel cooperation, including cyber, is stronger than it’s ever been under our two governments.”

On more local issues, Netanyahu said “my policy has been to definitely keep the Palestinian Authority. I don’t want it to dissolve the way people are talking. It’s simply ridiculous.” 

“I think peace is possible with additional Arab states, effectively ending the Arab-Israeli conflict,” he added “I think that would lead to peace with the Palestinians too.”