More than 130,000 Israelis demonstrated on Saturday in the streets of major cities in Israel, especially in Tel Aviv, Against the judicial reform that the government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu intends to carry outthe most right-wing in the country’s history.
This is the eighth consecutive Saturday that Israeli citizens have demonstrated against this controversial plan, which undermines the independence of the judiciary. It limits the Supreme Court’s ability to supervise the constitutionality of laws and government decisions – that is, it undermines the rule of law.
Flags, banners and posters reading “No Constitution, No Democracy”, “They Will Not Pass” and “We Will Abolish” were waved at the protests, especially in Tel Aviv, Israel’s most liberal and most populous city, where today there are more than 100,000 demonstrators.
According to police estimates, more than 30,000 citizens protested in Haifa, the country’s third largest city, and several thousand also took to the streets in Jerusalem, Beersheba and Herzliya.
Benjamin Netanyahu said he “would like to punch” the protesters
“Anyone who wants to defeat us and defeat us will discover our strength and unity tonight,” protest organizers said in a statement released the morning after the prime minister. Benjamin Netanyahu, having declared the day before that he would “would like to punch” protesters and likened them to anti-vaccination groups.
“When the prime minister used the word ‘hit’, he was referring to attacking the false arguments of those who are spreading panic and not attacking anyone physically, his office should have made that clear.
Prominent opposition leaders and intellectuals regularly took part in Saturday’s protests, including former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who on Thursday warned of the “imminent danger” of Israel becoming a “dictatorship” if judicial reform proceeds. He urged the Israelis to do so. They “used every means at their disposal” to save democracy.
Despite the strong social protest movement, the government continues to advance several bills that are part of the judicial reform and are already advancing to the preliminary stages in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), where debate is expected to begin next week. regarding the controversial “cancellation clause”.
Under the terms of this clause, a simple majority in Parliament may overturn a Supreme Court decision even if it involves overturning a law or government action that violates Basic Law, a type of constitution (which Israel does not officially have).
Other initiatives to be tabled in parliament are a measure that would give the government full control over the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court (ending the independence of the country’s judiciary), and allow political office holders to hold legal advisers in ministries.
Judges, lawyers, international jurists, bankers, politicians, intellectuals and government officials warned of the danger that reform could pose to Israeli democracy, through a sharp change in the system of balances and guarantees in it.
An opinion poll published this week by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) found that some 66% of Israeli citizens oppose such reform.
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