The legal changes have divided the nation between those who see the new policies as stripping Israel of its democratic ideals and those who believe the country has been overrun by a liberal justice system. The government’s plan plunged the nearly 75-year-old nation into one of its worst domestic crises.
“Either Israel will be a Jewish, democratic and progressive state, or a religious, totalitarian, failed, isolated and closed state. This is where they are taking us,” Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister and prominent supporter of the protest movement, told Israel’s Army Radio.
The opposition is rooted in broad sections of society – including business leaders and senior legal officials. Even the country’s military, seen as a beacon of stability by Israel’s Jewish majority, is embroiled in political conflict, as some reservists refuse to report for duty because of the changes. Israel’s international allies have also expressed concern.
The law to protect Netanyahu was passed by a vote of 61 to 47 in Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, which has 120 seats.
It stipulates that a Prime Minister can only be deemed unfit to govern for health or mental reasons and that only he or his government can make this decision. It comes after the country’s attorney general faced growing calls from opponents of Netanyahu to declare him unfit to adjudicate on his legal issues. The attorney general has already barred Netanyahu from participating in the legal overhaul, saying he risked a conflict of interest because of his corruption trial.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a good governance organization, said it was challenging the law in court, which could trigger the first confrontation between the judges and the government over the legal changes. Experts say the overhaul could trigger a constitutional crisis that would leave Israel in chaos over who should be obeyed, the government or the courts.
On Thursday, protesters kicked off a fourth day of midweek protests. They blocked major thoroughfares, torched tires near a major seaport and draped a large Israeli flag and a banner with the country’s Declaration of Independence on the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. Police said they made several arrests across the country. Shikma Bressler, one of the protest leaders, was among those arrested, organizers said.
Protests were planned for later in the day in a major ultra-Orthodox city near Tel Aviv. Organizers of the protest say it is meant to impress upon this community that their rights are at risk under the overhaul. Ultra-Orthodox leaders view the protest in their community as a provocation.
The overhaul crisis has amplified a long-standing divide between secular and religious Jewish Israelis over the role religion should play in their daily lives. Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers in government are the main drivers of the overhaul because they believe the courts are a threat to their traditional way of life. In contrast, secular opponents of the changes fear they will open the door to religious coercion.
In addition to Thursday’s protests, tens of thousands of people have been showing up for weekly protests every Saturday night for more than two months.
Netanyahu’s government rejected a compromise proposal earlier this month intended to ease the crisis. He said it would slow the pace of change, pushing most of it after a month-long parliamentary break in April.
But the government was moving forward on a key part of the overhaul, which would give the government control over who becomes a judge. The government says it amended the original bill to make the law more inclusive, but opponents rejected the move, saying the change was cosmetic and would maintain the government’s grip on the appointment of judges. The measure was due to pass next week.
Netanyahu is on trial for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of scandals involving wealthy associates and powerful media moguls. He denies wrongdoing and rejects critics who say he could find a way out of the charges through the legal overhaul his government is proposing.
The government says the changes are needed to restore a balance between the executive and the judiciary, which they say have become too interventionist in the way the country is run.
Critics say Israel’s most right-wing government is pushing the country toward authoritarianism with its overhaul, which they say upends the country’s fragile system of checks and balances.
Rights groups and Palestinians say Israel’s democratic ideals have long been tarnished by the 55-year-old indefinite occupation of land Palestinians seek for an independent state and the treatment of Palestinian Israeli citizens, who are victimized discrimination in many areas.
