Ethan Bronner
Mon, July 3, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- Israel’s anti-government protest movement launched a series of major disruptions on Monday, including an attempt to sow chaos at the international airport, over a renewed official attempt to weaken the judiciary.
The standoff coincides with an unusually fierce Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank that killed nine Palestinians and injured several dozen, some critically. Such operations depend partly on military reservists, some of whom are stepping up their role in the protests.
The police arrested four people at Ben Gurion Airport after a “violent disturbance” that saw officers attacked, according to a statement around 6 p.m. local time.
Israeli stocks fell and the shekel initially weakened for a ninth straight day against the dollar, before reversing its losses.
Since January, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing religious coalition announced a comprehensive plan to overhaul the courts, protests have occurred at least weekly, accusing the government of seeking authoritarian powers. But demonstrations slowed after Netanyahu put the plan on hold to allow for negotiations.
The talks recently broke down and the government introduced one key element into the legislative process — removing from judges the power to void appointments or decisions as “unreasonable.” The combination of the failed talks and the revived legislation has lit up the protest movement once again.
The last “day of disruption” by demonstrators was on May 4. Now such actions are under way again. On Monday, hundreds of protesters briefly blocked a gate to the port of Haifa.
More disruptions could be ahead.
Hundreds of military reservists — medics, intelligence officers, combat soldiers and pilots — have signed letters asserting that they won’t feel obliged to show up for service if the judicial changes become law.
“In light of the fact that the government has become ‘illegitimate’ — it is not worthy of our volunteering and obedience,” read one such letter from volunteers in the vital 8200 intelligence unit.
An organization of veterans, which has taken the name “Brothers in Arms,” says it has tens of thousands of members and is planning a series of more disruptive actions in the coming weeks. It also warns that if the new law passes, they will not show up for training — although there has been a gap in the past between threat and action on such refusal.
‘Irreparable Rift’
It was the prospect of widespread dissent within the ranks of the military, combined with a growing sense of threat from Iranian-backed militias like Hamas and Hezbollah, that caused Netanyahu to pause the judicial overhaul three months ago. At the time, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said national security was at risk.
On Monday, a group of veterans from Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency that’s a key player in West Bank operations, also warned that the government’s plans to move ahead with the judicial overhaul legislation “will create an irreparable rift in Israeli society, fatally damage national strength and Israeli defense.”
All of this has occurred while Iranian-backed challenges to Israel on its borders have been growing, and the Israeli military has killed scores of Palestinian militants in the bloodiest half-year in two decades.
Those factors remain, as Monday’s assault on the Jenin refugee camp showed. But so does intense pressure from within Israel’s ruling coalition to reduce the power of the judiciary. The right considers it a bastion of secular leftists whose decisions on human and minority rights contradict the will of the majority.
Gloves Off
The presence in Netanyahu’s government of political forces long considered illegitimate because of their anti-Arab extremism has also awakened political activism among secular liberals who say they are going to take off their gloves now to fight for Israeli democracy.
“Netanyahu and his extremist partners aim to impose a dictatorship in Israel and are using tools identical to those recently wielded by the leaders of Poland and Hungary,” Shikma Bressler, a physicist and protest leader, wrote in Monday’s Haaretz newspaper. “History shows that only an uncompromising civil struggle can prevent such leaders from achieving their goal. Our efforts in the coming weeks are likely to be less pleasant.”
As markets have suffered from the uncertainty and the internal tensions, Israel’s robust technology sector has played a key role in protests against the judicial overhaul.
The movement is heavily financed by Israelis in the industry, and cabinet ministers have met with high-tech entrepreneurs to try to persuade them to stop funding the protests, telling them the judicial overhaul isn’t viable anymore.
But with the introduction of the law on reasonableness, those appeals are falling on deaf ears.
“We are all in,” said Erez Shachar of Qumra Capital, which invests in Israeli tech companies, when asked about the renewed protests. “Letters, press announcements, supporting the demonstrations, special ops - both tech and general, very similar to the activities of two months ago.”
--With assistance from Gwen Ackerman, Galit Altstein and Alisa Odenheimer.
Israelis protest at international airport against judicial overhaul plan
Mon, July 3, 2023
JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of Israelis blocked traffic and snarled movement at the country's main international airport on Monday, the latest mass demonstration over Benjamin Netanyahu's contentious planned judicial overhaul that has divided the nation.
The Netanyahu government’s push to pass several overlapping reforms to the country’s judiciary have plunged Israel into an unprecedented crisis and divided an already highly polarized country.
Protesters waving Israel's blue-and-white national flag and blowing horns blocked the main thoroughfare outside Ben Gurion Airport's main terminal and demonstrated inside the arrivals hall. Police said officers arrested at least four people for public disturbance.
Netanyahu and his ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox political allies are pressing ahead with plans to pass several contentious changes to Israel’s judicial system after attempts to reach a compromise with opposition lawmakers disintegrated. The planned overhaul has drawn rebuke from the Biden administration and consternation from American Jews.
Netanyahu ally Simcha Rotman, who chairs parliament's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and has spearheaded the overhaul, said Monday that he would bring a bill to strip the Supreme Court of its authority to strike down government decisions it deems “unreasonable” this week.
That “reasonability standard" was used by the Supreme Court earlier this year to upend the appointment of a Netanyahu ally as interior minister because of a conviction for bribery when he served in the role in the 1990s and a 2021 plea deal for tax evasion.
Critics say removing that standard would allow the government to pass arbitrary decisions and grant it too much power.
Last week, over 100 Israeli air force reservists signed a letter saying they would refuse to show up for duty if the government moves forward with the plan.
Netanyahu and his allies came to power after November's election, Israel's fifth in under four years, all of which were largely referendums on the longtime leader's fitness to serve while on trial for corruption.
Netanyahu, whose corruption trial has dragged on for nearly three years, and his allies in his nationalist religious government say the overhaul is needed to rein in an overly interventionist judiciary and restore power to elected officials.
Critics say the plan would upend Israel’s delicate system of checks and balances and push the country toward dictatorship.
The Associated Press
Mon, July 3, 2023
JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of Israelis blocked traffic and snarled movement at the country's main international airport on Monday, the latest mass demonstration over Benjamin Netanyahu's contentious planned judicial overhaul that has divided the nation.
The Netanyahu government’s push to pass several overlapping reforms to the country’s judiciary have plunged Israel into an unprecedented crisis and divided an already highly polarized country.
Protesters waving Israel's blue-and-white national flag and blowing horns blocked the main thoroughfare outside Ben Gurion Airport's main terminal and demonstrated inside the arrivals hall. Police said officers arrested at least four people for public disturbance.
Netanyahu and his ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox political allies are pressing ahead with plans to pass several contentious changes to Israel’s judicial system after attempts to reach a compromise with opposition lawmakers disintegrated. The planned overhaul has drawn rebuke from the Biden administration and consternation from American Jews.
Netanyahu ally Simcha Rotman, who chairs parliament's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and has spearheaded the overhaul, said Monday that he would bring a bill to strip the Supreme Court of its authority to strike down government decisions it deems “unreasonable” this week.
That “reasonability standard" was used by the Supreme Court earlier this year to upend the appointment of a Netanyahu ally as interior minister because of a conviction for bribery when he served in the role in the 1990s and a 2021 plea deal for tax evasion.
Critics say removing that standard would allow the government to pass arbitrary decisions and grant it too much power.
Last week, over 100 Israeli air force reservists signed a letter saying they would refuse to show up for duty if the government moves forward with the plan.
Netanyahu and his allies came to power after November's election, Israel's fifth in under four years, all of which were largely referendums on the longtime leader's fitness to serve while on trial for corruption.
Netanyahu, whose corruption trial has dragged on for nearly three years, and his allies in his nationalist religious government say the overhaul is needed to rein in an overly interventionist judiciary and restore power to elected officials.
Critics say the plan would upend Israel’s delicate system of checks and balances and push the country toward dictatorship.
The Associated Press
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