For the 27th week in a row, Israelis have taken to the streets to protest a controversial judicial reform championed by the government. This Saturday, July 8, tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in central Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. The demonstrators were more numerous than in recent weeks, according to the organizers who put forward the figure of 180,000 demonstrators in Tel Aviv.
The Israeli media also gave rising figures, around 150,000 demonstrators, on the eve of the introduction, Monday, in the Knesset, of an important provision of the reform. Police do not provide estimates of the number of protesters, about 100 of whom were dispersed with water cannons after blocking Tel Aviv’s urban highway, according to an AFP reporter.
After unsuccessful attempts at negotiations with the opposition, following the announcement at the end of March of a “pause” in attempts to legislate on reform, the government is relaunching the offensive in Parliament on Monday, with the examination in first reading of a bill to nullify the ability of the judiciary to rule on the “reasonableness” of government decisions.
This provision affects in particular the appointment of ministers. In January, it forced the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to dismiss the number two in the government, Arie Dery, convicted of tax evasion, after the intervention of the Supreme Court.
For Amit Lev, 40, a high-tech executive, “if we don’t stop what’s happening now, there’s no turning back.”
The bill which will be introduced on Monday “aims to prevent the judiciary from criticizing government decisions that do not fall under any other law”, he worries. “If this law passes, we will not be able to live as we wish,” said Nira, a 59-year-old physiotherapist, saying she worries about the future.
The government believes the reform is necessary to ensure a better balance of power, but its critics see it as a threat to Israeli democracy and its institutional safeguards.
Demonstrations against the judicial reform project have followed one another without interruption every Saturday evening since January in what is considered one of the largest protest movements in the history of Israel. A new day of national mobilization was announced for Tuesday by the organizers.
