What is happening in Israel? The country was shaken by the biggest protest in its history
According to the count of the organizers, Only in Tel Aviv was the record of 240,000 protesters registered and 55,000 in Haifa, the third largest city in the country located in the north of Israel.
About half a million Israelis demonstrated last night across Israel, “the largest protest in Israel’s history,” according to civil society organizations that call for demonstrations against the new government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
“About half a million men and women came last night to protest against the coup, to the central demonstration on Kaplan street in Tel Aviv and in other places from one end of Israel to the other. It is the largest protest in the history of the State of Israel,” the organizing groups said in a statement today.
For weeks now, the police have not provided estimates on the number of participants in these protests that would allow us to compare the data offered by the organizers, which is generally validated by the Israeli media.
Groups for Black Flags or the Movement for a Quality Government in Israel have been bringing together hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the main cities of the country, with Tel Aviv as the epicenter, for ten consecutive weeks to protest against the judicial reform promoted by the new government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Broad sectors of Israeli society, not only the left but also from the liberal center, see this reform as a threat to democracy, since it allows broad control of the Executive over Justice, by being able to choose the judges, in addition to the “annulment clause”, by which Parliament could reverse Supreme Court rulings.
According to the count of the organizers, only in Tel Aviv was the record of 240,000 protesters registered -in weeks they had reached a maximum of 160,000- and 55,000 in Haifa, the country’s third city located in northern Israel.
In addition, more than 25,000 took to the streets of Netanya or Kfar Saba, while some 20,000 did so in Israel or 15,000 in Herzeliya, figures that are much higher than those registered in previous weeks.
Last Thursday, Tens of thousands of Israelis also protested in Tel Aviv, going so far as to block the main access to the airport to prevent Netanyahu from traveling to Italy, who had to go by helicopter to the terminal.
In addition, dozens of Navy reservists cut off maritime traffic from the merchant port of Haifa, the largest in the country.
The pressure on the streets has increased as the central judicial reform bills move through the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and when Several of its most controversial aspects, such as the annulment clause, are expected to be approved in final reading this week.
“This is one of the most critical weeks in the fight to safeguard Israeli democracy from those who seek to destroy it. Every Israeli whose heart is the Declaration of Independence must come out with strength and courage to defend the State of Israel,” said the organizers of the protests, which they have reconvened for this Thursday.
The demonstrations are against the new government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Getty Images