On Monday morning, hours after the government announced that it will be continuing to advance its judicial reform package, the shekel weakened against the dollar to its lowest point since Justice Minister Yariv Levin first presented his intentions. The U.S. dollar is now trading at 3.71 shekels.
This comes a month after the shekel’s slide against the dollar was halted when a senior official in the foreign exchange market suggested that the governor of the Bank of Israel, Prof. Amir Yaron, was likely to intervene to artificially prop up the shekel, even though the Bank of Israel’s only response to the suggestion was, “No comment.”
Following criticisms of the Bank’s governor and the continued decline of the shekel, Prime Minister Netanyahu chose to step in, writing in English on his Twitter account that the independence of the state’s central bank would not be affected by his government’s reforms.

On Monday morning, however, the Forum for Israeli Business, composed of key players in the Israeli economy, called for the immediate adoption, in full, of President Herzog’s proposal for judicial reform compromise, and for no legislation to advance unless it enjoys broad political consensus, especially legislation that “harms the independence of the judiciary.” They claimed that such legislation would only serve to deepen the rifts in Israeli society and would also deter people from investing in the Israeli economy – and could also precipitate a far-reaching economic crisis.
Last week, the Business Forum published an open letter in support of the Bank of Israel’s governor following his interview on CNN, in which Prof. Yaron sharply criticized the government’s proposed judicial reforms and said that, “The independence of the Bank of Israel is vital for the economy. Every single country that has weakened its central bank has suffered from significant consequences.”

The signatories to the Forum’s letter included the owners and directors of most of Israel’s largest companies, who expressed their support for the “importance of the Bank of Israel’s governor expressing his independent opinion without being subject to political pressures.” They also claimed that, “Damage to the independence of the Bank’s governor could cause irreversible damage to the Israeli economy,” and that safeguarding this independence was a “basic condition for a stable and thriving Israeli economy.”