According to local media, a good quarter of a million people in Israel have protested against the controversial judicial reform of the right-wing religious government. In central Tel Aviv, demonstrators rallied for the 11th consecutive Saturday with Israeli flags and protest signs. Among other things, it read: “No to the dictatorship” or “Israel is not yet Iran”. There were also protests in cities like Jerusalem and Beersheba.
There were isolated cases of arrests and violent attacks by supporters of the reform on demonstrators. Opposition leader Jair Lapid wrote on Twitter that he condemned the “extreme increase in violence”. You will not silence the demonstrators.
For more than two months there have been massive protests against the government’s comprehensive legislative project. In the future, for example, Parliament should be able to overrule decisions of the Supreme Court with a simple majority. Critics see the separation of powers in danger and warn of a dangerous state crisis. The coalition wants to push through core elements of the reform by the end of the month.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately rejected a compromise proposal presented by Israeli President Izchak Herzog on Wednesday. It is unbalanced and only cements the current state. The opposition backed the proposal. “It’s not perfect, but it’s a fair compromise that allows us to live here together,” said Lapid. In a civil war there are only losers. Herzog emphasized that the proposal was intended as a basis for talks.
The protest movement is one of the largest in the history of Israel, a country of around 9.4 million people, and it spans broad sections of society. There is also increasing resistance from the army. Hundreds of elite officers from the military reserve announced that they would no longer report for duty as of Sunday.
