The judicial change plan that plunged Israel into political crisis

INTERPRETER

Reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu will halt his plans after weeks of protests and the resignation of his defense minister.

The Israeli government is in crisis due to division over controversial plans to overhaul the country’s legal system.

Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets again Sunday evening in unprecedented protests that shook the coastal city of Tel Aviv and western Jerusalem to their foundations.

The demonstrations followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to fire his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday night after he opposed the prime minister’s proposed changes to the judiciary.

The prime minister was due to address the nation on Monday morning, but he did not. According to Israeli media reports, he was expected to stop the judicial changes, but members of his far-right governing coalition are threatening to quit, raising the prospect of government collapse.

Why are Israelis protesting?

• Large weekly protests have been taking place in Tel Aviv since the beginning of the year after Netanyahu announced plans to introduce legislative changes that protesters and the opposition said would undermine the state’s democratic system and reduce checks and balances.
• Netanyahu and his supporters say the changes are necessary to rein in a judiciary that wields too much power.
• The proposed changes would limit the Supreme Court’s powers to rule against the legislature and the executive, giving Israel’s parliament (Knesset) the power to override Supreme Court decisions by a simple majority of 61 out of 120 to vote.
• A second proposal would remove the Supreme Court’s authority to review the legality of Israel’s basic laws, which function as the country’s constitution.
• The reforms would also change the way Supreme Court judges are selected, giving politicians decisive powers in appointing judges.

What was the response to the Secretary of Defense’s resignation?

• In the first public dissent within Netanyahu’s government, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced his opposition to the judicial changes on Saturday in a televised brief statement, saying that “the deeper divisions” within Israel over the issue “seeped into the military and defense institutions”. and was “a clear, immediate and real danger to Israel’s security”.
• The next day, Netanyahu fired Gallant, sparking huge demonstrations as protesters lit bonfires, blocked highways and broke metal barriers set up by police on Sunday evening.
• Sunday’s protests marked a major shift, with protesters’ demands shifting from a halt to the judicial change plan to some calling for Netanyahu’s removal.
• The country’s main union, the Histadrut, announced they would force a general strike and bring the country to a complete standstill if the prime minister did not withdraw his plan.
• “I am calling for a general strike,” Histadrut chairman Arnon Bar-David said in a televised address. “We are on a mission to stop this legislative process and we will do it,” he said, vowing to “keep fighting”.
• According to Israeli media, flights from Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport were halted on Monday morning as airport workers went on strike.

What is the response of the Israeli government?

• Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister appointed as part of the new far-right nationalist-religious government that took office in late December, has reportedly threatened to leave the governing coalition if the judicial review plan is halted.
• “We must not stop reforming the judiciary and surrender to anarchy,” Ben-Gvir said on Twitter.
• Justice Minister Yariv Levin, of Netanyahu’s Likud party, has also reportedly threatened to leave the coalition.
• Two other members of the Likud, ministers Ron Dermer and Yoav Kish, along with ultra-Orthodox Shas party chairman Arye Dery, have expressed support for halting the plans.
• The Religious Zionist Party, one of the main parties in the governing coalition, released a statement saying they had been “duly elected and given a clear mandate from the people to restore balance to Israeli democracy.”
• “We owe it to the majority of the people to raise their voices and continue this important historical correction,” the party said on Monday.
• On Monday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog called on Netanyahu to halt the plan. “For the sake of the unity of the people of Israel, for the sake of accountability, I call on you to halt the legislative process immediately,” Herzog said on Twitter.