The pro-democracy movement declared Tuesday, July 11 a national day of resistance in Israel. And it was heard. Massively. From the early hours of the day, all over the country, demonstrators blocked roads and major intersections. A little later, in several cities of the country, Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, thousands of Israelis gathered to express their anger vis-a-vis what they call the change of regime wanted by the government. And in the afternoon, more than ten thousand of them gathered at Ben-Gurion airport, again awaited by hundreds of deployed police officers, with the task of blocking their entrance to the passenger terminal. departures so as not to interfere with the smooth running of flights. Despite the heat and increasingly nervous security forces, the city returned in the evening, with more than 50,000 demonstrators on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv and several thousand in Jerusalem not far from Binyamin Netanyahu’s home. Same thing in Haifa, in localities in the north of the country and in satellite cities of Greater Tel Aviv.
In all, the protest took place in a hundred points spread across the country. Opposite, police mobilized en masse, who, obviously, had received firm instructions. In other words, it was zero tolerance for anyone who would block roads or fail to respond to orders from law enforcement. Water cannons, mounted police, metal barriers to repel recalcitrants, manu militari arrests. The police did not skimp on resources. And the results speak for themselves: a hundred demonstrators arrested, dozens of injured treated on the spot, while 13 had to be hospitalized; like this renowned 72-year-old lawyer. Trampled by a horse, he has a broken hip and a deep cut on his brow bone.
Throughout June, as the number of participants in the Saturday evening rallies dwindled, the media could speak of a loss of steam in the pro-democracy movement. Maybe that was going a bit too fast! For the past few days, the renewed energy has been palpable. It was triggered by two events: the Knesset’s first-reading vote on a bill nullifying one of the Supreme Court’s major tools: the legal concept of “reasonableness”, allowing it to censure the government. For Avihaï Mandelblit, the former attorney general, this text “places the State of Israel in a situation of pre-dictatorship”. In a television interview, he recalled that the country “was a weak democracy, without a constitution, without a declaration of human rights and with a single-chamber parliament. Only the independence of the Supreme Court can ensure democracy.”
The other event that prompted these huge crowds to take to the streets was last Sunday, in the Council of Ministers, the full attack on the current Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara. For at least four hours, all the ministers fiercely criticized her, some calling for her resignation. Others saying, “we should fire you.” His fault: Not cracking down harder on anti-government protesters whom the ruling right calls hooligans, anarchists, and even terrorists. Is this the result of the Netanyahu Cabinet’s lawsuit against Gali Baharav-Miara? The fact remains that on the ground, police repression has considerably hardened.
As last spring, at the height of the demonstrations, the reservists, very present in all the rallies, again threaten to no longer volunteer to serve in the units where the army cannot do without them. Whether it’s cyber weapons programmers, officers at various levels of the air force, or special commandos. According to a military expert who wished to remain anonymous, if these threats materialize, the Netanyahu cabinet will have no choice and will have to give up the judicial overhaul.
And there is the Biden administration. increasingly critical. Last Sunday, the President of the United States launched a new salvo in the direction of the Netanyahu cabinet calling it “the most extremist Israeli government” that it had ever known. Yesterday he issued a statement asking the Israeli authorities to “respect the right to demonstrate in peace and security.” The bill overriding “reasonableness” could be passed by the Knesset in about 10 days.