The political and social pulse surrounding judicial reform is picking up again in Israel. With the paralysis of dialogue, increasing decibels in government and opposition statements, and most importantly, the resumption of the legislative offensive in Parliament, tens of thousands of Israelis have once again mobilized against the initiative, which they see as a threat to their democracy. The political and social movement against the reform showed its teeth last week with a massive protest at Tel Aviv airport and followed up this Tuesday with a day of disruption. It consisted of dozens of actions, from early morning to the usual demonstration in Tel Aviv, where the number of participants mattered less than how they were perceived. According to a police statement released in the afternoon, there were more than 70 arrests for disturbing public order.
The demonstrators managed to block roads and gathered again at the airport, which centralizes almost all of the country’s international air traffic. They also focused on Kaplan Street, the epicenter of Saturday’s protests, and the US Embassy branch, both in Tel Aviv; in front of the presidential residence in Jerusalem and at the Haifa District Court. Police used water cannon to break up some protests.
The Histadrut, the main union hub, has threatened a second general strike, similar to the one in March, forcing Netanyahu to temporarily halt reform. “Where are you leading the State of Israel? What legacy would you like to leave behind? “Put an end to this crazy chaos,” his top official Arnon Bar-David Netanyahu demanded at a news conference in Tel Aviv. “When the situation reaches an extreme and all other avenues have been followed, we will intervene and use our force,” he added.
The internal debate about the reform has deteriorated in recent weeks. Not only in the music, but also in the lyrics. The government’s most radical wing is calling for a “strong hand” amid roadblocks, rallies and strikes outside ministers’ homes.
Indeed, Tel Aviv Police Chief Amijai Eshed resigned last week after being urged by Secretary of State for National Security, far-right Itamar Ben Gvir, to deal more vigorously with the protests. “He could easily have used undue force and filled the ER with it [el hospital] Ichilov at the end of every demonstration in Tel Aviv. we could have vacated [la carretera] Ayalón within minutes, at the terrible cost of breaking heads and bones and destroying the treaty that exists between the police and the citizens of Israel. “I am paying an unbearable personal price for my decision to avoid civil war,” he said in announcing his resignation.
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A few days later, on the 27th Saturday of the demonstration in a row, the number of visitors to the assembly in Tel Aviv (around 150,000 people) already exceeded the average of the last three months, during which there was a relative ceasefire between the government and the opposition under the patronage of President Isaac Herzog in dialogue.
Arrest of a protester this Tuesday in Tel Aviv. Oded Balilty (AP)
In that regard, last Sunday, in a meeting that the Yediot newspaper Aharonot described as a mix, the various ministers brought up their accumulated grievances against the government’s legal adviser and Netanyahu’s black beast, Gali Baharav-Miara, and the police chief, Kobi Shabtai. to express “ambush, witch hunts and verbal lynchings”. Transport chief Miri Regev called for Baharav-Miara to be sacked for acting ideologically and “allowing the creation of anarchy,” while Netanyahu said it was “unthinkable” that the security forces were only acting “against one party.” The police chief had to clarify that the only officers injured in the protests were light. In half a year of demonstrations, no one ended up in the hospital, he explained.
legal filter
For now, the focus is on a clause called adequacy. In a country without a constitution, and therefore without a constitutional court, it serves as a legal filter, allowing the Supreme Court to overturn decisions by the government, ministers or elected officials – such as mayors – that it considers manifestly unreasonable.
The abolition of the instrument, one of the key points of the reform, was passed in the first reading on Monday evening. The 64 MPs in the coalition that forms Netanyahu’s party (Likud) with ultra-Orthodox and ultra-nationalists and is the most right-wing in the country’s 75-year history voted in favor of it in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. The rest of the chamber (56 seats) ruled against it.
To become law, the text needs two more readings (usually on the same day). Justice Minister Yariv Levin has already announced his intention for the Knesset to vote on it in the current parliamentary session, which ends at the end of the month, with minimal deviations.
Benjamin Netanyahu (right) with his communications minister Shlomo Karhi this Monday in the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem. Maya Alleruzzo (AP)
“The law is balanced, responsible and differs significantly from what perhaps should have been legislated for. The basis of sanity is something that the State of Israel has survived without its existence for many years. And believe it or not, the sun rose every morning, even in these dark times,” said Simja Rothman, one of the most important battering rams of the reform, at the start of the session of the Knesset Committee on Constitutional Law and Justice on Tuesday .
President Herzog stressed last Sunday that an agreement is still “attainable”, precisely in terms of reasonableness, and urged politicians from across the political spectrum to “put egos aside”. “Right now nobody is willing to sit down and talk without preconditions. “It’s a mistake of historic proportions,” he said.
Abolishing the adequacy clause would not only eliminate a counterweight to the executive. It would also open the door for Arye Deri, leader of one of the coalition parties, the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi Shas, to retake home affairs and health portfolios stripped of him by the Supreme Court last January. The court resorted to this tool, finding it inappropriate both for Netanyahu to name a person convicted of a tax offense and for the explicit change in the law that allowed the appointment after last November’s election victory. It consisted of restricting the ban on taking on a portfolio to anyone who was in prison, even though they knew Deri had gotten away by an out-of-court settlement.
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