23rd week of protests against judicial reform

2023-06-10 21:33:00

Thousands of Israelis demonstrated against the Netanyahu government’s controversial judicial reform plan.

By NJ with AFP

Several thousand Israelis again demonstrated against judicial reform.
© JACK GUEZ / AFP

Published on 06/10/2023 at 9:33 p.m.

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Por the 23rd consecutive week, thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv, Haifa or Rehovot to demonstrate against the controversial reform bill of the judicial system of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We are being held hostage,” said Michal Gat, 47, who works in the high-tech sector, in Tel Aviv. “Our country, its economy, human rights are being confiscated by extreme people,” she lamented. “We have been here for 23 weeks with our children, rain or shine. It is super important for the Israeli people to preserve democracy in Israel”.

Criticism of crime targeting the Arab minority

A number of protesters also held up signs criticizing the government’s inaction in the face of a crime wave currently affecting the country’s Arab minority. ‘We won’t let Ben-Gvir get away with murder in Arab society,’ reads one, a reference to Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. .

On Thursday, five of them were shot dead at a car wash in Yafia, an Arab town west of Nazareth, possibly in connection with a gang war, according to Israeli police. Since the start of the year, nearly 100 people have been killed in violence linked to crime among Israel’s Arab minority, according to various Arab rights NGOs.

READ ALSOJudicial reform in Israel: Netanyahu avoids the worst-case scenarioAccording to the government, one of the most right-wing in the history ofIsrael, the reform of the judicial system aims, among other things, to rebalance powers by reducing the prerogatives of the Supreme Court, which the executive considers politicized, in favor of Parliament. But its detractors believe that it risks opening the way to an illiberal or authoritarian drift.

The President of the State of Israel, Isaac Herzog, has been negotiating for a month with representatives of the government and the opposition in order to reach a compromise on the terms of this reform.