Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took part in nationwide demonstrations against the government’s plans to tie up the judiciary for the 11th consecutive Saturday night, which was marked by numerous acts of violence against protesters.
The organizers of the protests vowed to escalate the demonstrations if the coalition doesn’t stop its proposed legislation that lawmakers are due to table next week, and declared next Thursday “national paralysis day”.
“Next week, Israel’s government intends to pass the law on dictatorship and religious coercion,” organizers of Saturday’s protests said in a statement.
“Hundreds of people will stand against them like an iron wall, supporting the Supreme Court and the heads of state [judicial] system to stop the coup. Every citizen needs to come out and take a stand in these fateful moments of the State of Israel. Together, hundreds of thousands will save Israeli democracy,” they added.
Over 260,000 people demonstrated across the country, including 175,000 in Tel Aviv, 20,000 in Haifa, 4,000 in Netanya, 11,500 in Herzliya, 18,000 in Kfar Saba and 6,000 in Beersheba, according to a count by Crowd Solution firm quoted by Channel 13 News .
About 10,000 protesters gathered in front of the President’s residence in Jerusalem.
Jacob Frenkel, a former Bank of Israel chief who was until recently chairman of JP Morgan Chase International, warned that the coalition’s far-reaching plans to overhaul the judicial system were “destroying the Zionist enterprise from within.”
At the main protest event in Tel Aviv, Frenkel told the crowd that judicial reform will have serious economic consequences for Israel.
“Our friends are surprised and wondering how a country that has been an object of envy and admiration is destroying the Zionist enterprise from within in an extreme manner, and all in less than three months,” he said.
At a rally in the southern coastal city of Ashdod, opposition leader Yair Lapid accused the government of not being interested in compromise.
“They are rushing ahead with their legislation to turn Israel into a non-democratic country. You only have one problem. They hadn’t expected that [demonstrations] to come to Ashdod, to Beersheba, to the hills of Gush Etzion, to Rehovot and Jerusalem,” he said.
“The government has work to do. It’s supposed to keep people safe, it doesn’t. It’s supposed to steer the economy, it doesn’t. It’s supposed to unite the nation, they’re tearing the nation apart,” he added.
Israelis protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government plans to overhaul the Israeli judicial system on Saturday, March 18, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Dan Halutz, a former IDF chief of staff, told protesters in Haifa that ultra-Orthodox Israelis “should start learning basic studies because F-16 fighter jets are only in English,” in a dispute with the community’s broad refusal to to serve in the military and the refusal to teach core subjects in some Haredi schools.
The ex-military chief encouraged protesters to bring more people to the protests and called the fight against the government’s judicial overhaul a “war of liberation for the State of Israel”.
“And just as we won the war of independence, you will win the second war of liberation,” he said.
A surge in violent incidents against protesters was recorded on Saturday.
Police said they arrested a 57-year-old man who allegedly rammed his car into a group of protesters in Herzliya, slightly injuring one protester.
The protester was taken to Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba, police added.
Police also said officers arrested a 24-year-old man for driving a motorcycle into a group of protesters in the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim. He was suspected of attacking and threatening the demonstrators.
None of the protesters were injured in the incident.
In Tel Aviv, police said around 50 protesters tried to block the Ayalon Highway. Officers blocked the road in both directions while they worked to disperse them.
Two people were arrested trying to block the northbound route and two others on Yigal Alon Street near the entrance to the highway, police said.
Demonstrators block a highway during a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government’s plans to overhaul the Israeli judicial system on Saturday March 18, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Several far-right activists, some of them masked, were seen physically confronting protesters in Tel Aviv.
Footage released by a Haaretz reporter showed police officers pushing one of the masked men away from the crowd.
Right-wing counter-protesters across the city, who supported the government’s proposed changes, held up signs that read “Leftists are traitors”.
In the early evening, hundreds of protesters blocked the Karkur intersection along Route 65 in northern Israel. Police used water cannon to disperse the crowd and arrested seven protesters.
Dozens of veterans of the Shayetet 13 elite naval commando unit demonstrated outside the home of Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant in the northern Moshav Amikam. Gallant headed the unit in the 1990s.
Hundreds of protesters also rallied for the first time in the northern city of Or Akiva, a predominantly right-wing community.
Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party threw eggs at protesters. Police said officers arrested three people at the scene for throwing eggs.
News site Ynet reported they yelled at the protesters, using Netanyahu’s nickname, “Anarchists, just Bibi.”
Apparently for the first time, some Bedouin Israelis protested against the government’s plans at the Hura Crossing in southern Israel.
The group stood next to several Jewish Israelis and held signs that read “This is the home of us all” and “Equal rights and democracy for us all.”
Protest organizers responded to the violence against protesters, claiming it was a direct result of “incitement from the house of Netanyahu.”
“When the prime minister’s son calls protesters Nazis, that’s what happens. The police have to arrest him tonight,” organizers said, referring to statements by Yair Netanyahu comparing protesters to the Nazi Sturmabteilung’s paramilitary SA.
Saturday night’s protests followed fierce protests earlier in the day when clashes broke out between protesters, police and residents of a village where National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was spending Shabbat.
Protesters rallied as the government was expected to introduce several controversial laws in the coming week, including a bill that would allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to receive donations to fund his legal costs in his criminal trials; a bill allowing Shas leader Aryeh Deri to return to a ministerial post, despite a Supreme Court ruling barring him from doing so; a draft law ensuring Netanyahu cannot be forced to resign due to a conflict of interest between his criminal case and the government’s radical legal reforms; and a bill allowing hospitals to bar people from bringing hamez, or leavened goods, to their premises during Passover, an agreement previously struck down by the Supreme Court.
In mass protests last Thursday, demonstrators marched and disrupted traffic across the country. Police arrested 21 people in several incidents, including two motorists accused of pepper spraying protesters who were blocking the road.
Demonstrators confront mounted police officers during a demonstration against the government’s controversial judicial review measures in Tel Aviv, March 16, 2023. (Jack Guez/AFP)
Around 100 different protest groups attended a meeting to decide next Thursday’s next steps to escalate protests, according to Ynet news.
Some of the protest leaders were reportedly calling for a full shutdown of the country, similar to protests over recent pension reforms in France that have brought Paris to a standstill.
“Trains are being stopped, schools are being closed, fuel deliveries have been halted. The organizers there are threatening that France will cancel the race if this is the case [French President Emmanuel] Macron is not withdrawing the reforms. We are demonstrating for the existence of Israeli democracy, not for pensions,” said one of the organizers without a source, according to the report.
Another protest leader feared such an action would lead to violence: “We saw what happened on the streets of Paris. We cannot get into a situation where we turn the demonstrations into something violent and create anarchy in the streets. We will lose legitimacy. We can’t shake hands with that. It will be a victory for Netanyahu.”
A Histadrut union official told the news site that the organization’s leader, Arnon Bar-David, remains opposed to a general strike because “the government is pressuring him not to do it.”
According to the report, teachers are also considering closing schools as part of Thursday’s protests.
The government’s current plan will allow the Knesset to overrule court decisions by the slimmest majority, pre-emptively protect laws completely from judicial scrutiny, and place the selection of all judges in the hands of coalition politicians.
Opponents argue that it would drastically weaken Israel’s democratic character, remove a key element of its checks and balances, and leave minorities unprotected. Proponents are calling it a much-needed reform to curb an over-activist court.
This weekend’s protest came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other ministers slammed down President Isaac Herzog’s proposal for alternative judicial reform.
However, opposition leaders have backed the president’s plan, calling the proposal workable but not ideal.
The overhaul plans have drawn fierce public criticism and opposition across Israel, sparking mass protests and dire warnings from economists, lawyers, academics and security officials. Since January, protesters have poured into the streets in several days of “disruption” and “resistance.”
A number of polls have shown that the legislation is largely unpopular with the general public. However, a poll on Friday showed that Israelis are divided over whether or not the country’s security apparatus should follow Supreme Court rulings or government decisions in the event of a constitutional crisis.