JERUSALEM, Feb 14 (NNN-MA’AN) – Some 90,000 Israelis rallied outside the parliament building yesterday, to protest against contentious judicial reforms, after the ruling coalition formally launched a legislation blitz, to pass the reform plans, the police authorities said.
The demonstration was one of the largest protests Israel has seen in years. It was prompted by a plan by Benjamin Netanyahu’s extreme-right government, to overhaul the judiciary, weaken the Supreme Court and give the government more power over judicial appointments.
The protesters waved the Israeli flags and chanted “democracy” and “no to dictatorship.” Thousands more rallied in cities and major intersections throughout the country.
The Israeli parliament, or Knesset, was in an uproar, after a parliamentary committee decided to submit the first chapter of new bills to vote at the Knesset plenum. One of the bills would give Netanyahu’s government overruling power over the appointment of new judges, while another one would bar the Supreme Court from overturning laws, even those that are unconstitutional.
The bills now need to pass three rounds of voting in the Knesset plenum. However, the passage of the bills is expected to be relatively straightforward, as the ruling coalition holds a majority of 64 seats in the 120-seat parliament.
The government pressed ahead with the legislation blitz, despite a plea from Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, to put the legislation on hold. In a rare address to the nation on Sunday night, Herzog warned that the reform plans threaten to bring the country to a “constitutional and social collapse.”
Also yesterday, a nationwide strike was called. State-owned Kan TV news reported that, many businesses, including hundreds of high-tech companies and law firms, gave permission to employees to join the strike.
Former Defence Minister, Benny Gantz, said at a press conference at the Knesset, which was held jointly with other leaders of the opposition parties, that the opposition is united “against the targeted assassination of democracy.”
Netanyahu dismissed the protest. “I call on the heads of the opposition: stop it. Stop deliberately dragging the country into anarchy,” he said in a video posted on Twitter. “Most Israeli citizens do not want anarchy. They want a substantive discourse. They want unity.”
Netanyahu is currently on trial over corruption charges, which he denies. After the general election in Nov last year, the fifth held in Israel in fewer than four years, Netanyahu emerged as the leader of a new coalition government, with ultranationalist and ultra-religious parties. The government, the most far-right in Israel’s history, was sworn-in in Dec.
Netanyahu and his partners within the coalition maintain that, the overhaul of the legal system is necessary, to establish a new balance of power and to restrain activist judges, who used their power to interfere in the political sphere.– NNN-MA’AN
