Jerusalem, Israel.- Tens of thousands of people demonstrated this Monday in front of the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem, in rejection of a judicial reform project that they consider a threat to democracy and that must be voted in a partial way in a few hours.
A tide of Israeli flags flooded the gardens and streets surrounding the Knesset (parliament), according to AFP journalists present at the scene. The police blocked the access to the building.
Around 2:00 p.m. local time, there were already some 30,000 people in the place, according to local television. Thousands of others continued to arrive from various cities in the country. One of the organizers indicated that he expected an influx of about 100,000 people.
The protesters reject the judicial reform that the new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who took power at the end of December, wants to approve.
Netanyahu leads a coalition of right-wing, far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, considered the most right-wing in the country’s history.
The reform, proposed at the beginning of January, seeks to reduce the influence of the judiciary through a clause that would allow Parliament to annul by a simple majority some decisions of the Supreme Court.
It also proposes changing the process for appointing judges and reducing the powers of legal advisers in ministries.
“The state is in danger,” Dvir Bar, a 45-year-old protester who came to the protest from Holon in central Israel, told AFP.
“The project is a coup attempt to transform Israel into a dictatorship.”
internal crisis
Some posters read: “Fed up with the corrupt” or “Fascism will not pass.” The demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Israel is not a dictatorship!” and “Democracy is dialogue.”
The Executive’s proposal generates a strong rejection in public opinion, which sees it as a threat to democracy.
The Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, who has an essentially formal role, warned on Sunday about the fractures that the project causes in society.
It is not the first demonstration that has been called against this reform. In Tel Aviv, protests on Saturday have become regular for tens of thousands of people.
“In a democracy, the people vote in the elections and the representatives of the people vote here in the Knesset,” Netanyahu responded to the protesters from the chamber.
“Unfortunately, the leaders of the protest trample on democracy. They do not respect the results of the elections, they do not respect the decision of the majority.”
For Netanyahu and his Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, the reform is necessary to rebalance the power relations between the deputies and the Court, which they consider to be politicized.
But its detractors argue that it threatens the democratic character of the state.
“This is the worst internal crisis the State of Israel has ever known, we will not give up,” said opposition leader Yair Lapid (center).
“History will not forgive them and History will judge them,” said former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, another centrist opposition figure.
Some voices on the right also reject the reform, such as the former head of the Shin Beth (internal security service), Yoram Cohen.
It is “impossible to change the nature of the state at the judicial level without a broad agreement,” he declared Monday on military radio.
