KShortly before the planned visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Berlin, criticism of his plans for judicial reform continued. On Tuesday, around 1,000 Israeli artists, writers and scientists wrote a letter to the ambassadors of Germany and Great Britain demanding that Netanyahu not be received in Berlin and London.
Israel is in the most serious crisis in its history and “on the way from a vibrant democracy to a theocratic dictatorship,” the newspaper time quoted from the letter. Netanyahu is to be received by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin on Thursday. A visit to London is planned for the second half of March.
On Tuesday night, the Knesset adopted a significant part of the controversial bill in its first reading. It would give Parliament the opportunity to change constitutional laws with a simple majority and to overrule objections from the Supreme Court. Earlier, the Knesset had voted in first reading for a bill that limits the possibility of the judiciary declaring the prime minister incapacitated – for example, if Netanyahu were convicted in a corruption trial currently ongoing against him.
The momentum of the opposition
Both drafts received the votes of Netanyahu’s ultra-right governing coalition. Nevertheless, even within his Likud party, displeasure with the handling of the reform seems to be growing. The newspaper “Yedioth Ahronoth” quoted on Tuesday from a parliamentary group meeting in which a high-ranking party member complained that the opposition is currently dictating the agenda and that the protests that have been going on for around ten weeks have had the momentum on the streets – “and we have nothing” .
The anger is apparently also directed at Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from the party “Jewish Strength”, who gave the protests further influx through his “stupid and harmful statements”, as the newspaper quoted another contribution. Ben-Gvir had to decide “whether he wanted to be a minister in the cabinet or a member of the opposition”.
Ben-Gvir had recently sparked protests within the police when he called for tougher action against the protests directed against his government and dismissed the Tel Aviv police chief, which was stopped by the judiciary for the time being. Army radio reported Tuesday that Israel Police Chief Yaakov Shabtai held a secret meeting with his predecessors, during which grave concerns about Ben-Gvir’s leadership were expressed.