Mass Protests in Israel Often Start on a Neighborhood Street, or an App
A movement against the government’s judicial overhaul plan is a grass-roots affair spread by word of mouth and WhatsApp messaging groups.
“He should know what his neighbors think,” said Amit Eyal, 24, a medical student, adding, “I feel like I was born in one country and now it’s changing into another.”
When the police tried to move along the Eyals and other neighbors, they said they were just out for a walk and paraded around in a circle on the street.
“We are very busy people,” said Mr. Eyal’s mother, Sara Eyal, 58, a professor of pharmacy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “But speaking for myself, this is more important.”
Bills being hastily pushed through Parliament by the governing coalition would essentially give the government the power to appoint judges, severely curtail judicial review over legislation and allow the legislature to overturn Supreme Court rulings with a bare majority.
Critics say that the move would be dangerous in a country that lacks a formal written constitution or any other significant means of checking the government’s power.
Polls indicate that a majority oppose the proposed bills, and many older Israelis say the divisions the plans have wrought have provoked one of the country’s most perilous periods since the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, also known as the Yom Kippur War, or since the war in 1948 surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel.
Underpinning the protests in neighborhoods like Beit Hakerem and around the country is a broad, diverse alliance of grass-roots initiatives and organizations — representing women, the L.G.B.T.Q. community, veterans, the high-tech industry and health workers — that has come together to create one of the most sweeping popular struggles in decades.
Many communicate by word of mouth or through groups formed on WhatsApp and on other encrypted messaging platforms popular in Israel, which are often focused on workplaces, neighborhoods and communities.
An informal body known simply as “the struggle HQ” has amplified those messages, coordinating between the groups, advertising and helping set up stages and sound systems for the mass protests and planning for days of “national disruption” or “national resistance,” as weekday, countrywide protests have been called.
The group is staffed mainly by volunteers under the operational leadership of Eran Schwarz, an air force pilot turned social activist. A crowdfunding campaign had raised nearly 9 million shekels (about $2.5 million) as of Thursday and donations from businesspeople paid for a countrywide billboard campaign.
That is all helping to drive Israelis onto city streets, and in smaller communities, out to demonstrations at road junctions in more rural areas.
A movement against the government’s judicial overhaul plan is a grass-roots affair spread by word of mouth and WhatsApp messaging groups.
A protest in Jerusalem last month against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government to overhaul the country’s judicial system. Critics say the effort will undermine the country’s democratic institutions.
Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
By Isabel Kershner
Reporting from Jerusalem
March 17, 2023,
The four activists arrived stealthily just after dawn at the well-guarded home of the Israeli minister in a leafy residential street in Jerusalem. Dropping to the sidewalk, they handcuffed themselves to one another through sections of pipe, and to a nearby lamppost, for a “lock-on” protest in front of the front gate.
The police showed up almost instantly. So did about a dozen neighbors who had been tipped off about the protest, which occurred on a recent weekday, via a neighborhood WhatsApp group. They emerged from nearby apartment blocks and houses, and one from a nearby park, waving large Israeli flags.
One neighbor carried a placard that read: “If you don’t stand up as a CITIZEN, they will turn you into a SUBJECT.” Some chanted “Shame!” when the police used pliers and hammers to try to break the human chain of activists — three men and a woman — outside the home of the official, Nir Barkat, the economy minister in the right-wing government that took power late last year.
Efforts by the government to exert greater control over the judiciary have prompted waves of protests across Israel in recent weeks.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have filled streets and squares in Tel Aviv and other cities on Saturday nights to voice their opposition to what they see as a move to undermine a cherished pillar of Israeli democracy.
By Isabel Kershner
Reporting from Jerusalem
March 17, 2023,
The four activists arrived stealthily just after dawn at the well-guarded home of the Israeli minister in a leafy residential street in Jerusalem. Dropping to the sidewalk, they handcuffed themselves to one another through sections of pipe, and to a nearby lamppost, for a “lock-on” protest in front of the front gate.
The police showed up almost instantly. So did about a dozen neighbors who had been tipped off about the protest, which occurred on a recent weekday, via a neighborhood WhatsApp group. They emerged from nearby apartment blocks and houses, and one from a nearby park, waving large Israeli flags.
One neighbor carried a placard that read: “If you don’t stand up as a CITIZEN, they will turn you into a SUBJECT.” Some chanted “Shame!” when the police used pliers and hammers to try to break the human chain of activists — three men and a woman — outside the home of the official, Nir Barkat, the economy minister in the right-wing government that took power late last year.
Efforts by the government to exert greater control over the judiciary have prompted waves of protests across Israel in recent weeks.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have filled streets and squares in Tel Aviv and other cities on Saturday nights to voice their opposition to what they see as a move to undermine a cherished pillar of Israeli democracy.
Four activists handcuffed themselves to one another and to a lamppost outside the house of Nir Barkat, the economy minister, in Jerusalem.
Credit...Isabel Kershner
Retired security chiefs and justices, Nobel Prize winners, former prime ministers and business leaders have marched in mass protests, addressed the crowds or added their names to petitions and newspaper advertisements condemning the move by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government to overhaul the judiciary.
There are small, pop-up protests occurring across the country, too, sometimes involving just one person with a sign.
The protests are also playing out in quiet neighborhoods like Beit Hakerem, home to Mr. Barkat, drawing in ordinary Israelis of all ages and from all walks of life, emphasizing the depth of the anger in the country over the direction of the new government.
The Eyal family, who said they live in “a less fancy house” on the same street as Mr. Barkat, were among the neighbors who came out to support the protest outside the economy minister’s home. It was one of many that have been organized outside the homes of the politicians behind the judicial overhaul in recent weeks.
Retired security chiefs and justices, Nobel Prize winners, former prime ministers and business leaders have marched in mass protests, addressed the crowds or added their names to petitions and newspaper advertisements condemning the move by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government to overhaul the judiciary.
There are small, pop-up protests occurring across the country, too, sometimes involving just one person with a sign.
The protests are also playing out in quiet neighborhoods like Beit Hakerem, home to Mr. Barkat, drawing in ordinary Israelis of all ages and from all walks of life, emphasizing the depth of the anger in the country over the direction of the new government.
The Eyal family, who said they live in “a less fancy house” on the same street as Mr. Barkat, were among the neighbors who came out to support the protest outside the economy minister’s home. It was one of many that have been organized outside the homes of the politicians behind the judicial overhaul in recent weeks.
What to Know About Israel’s Judiciary Overhaul
A divisive proposal. A package of proposed legislation for a far-reaching overhaul of the judicial system in Israel has set off mass protests by those who say it will destroy the country’s democratic foundations.Here is what to know:
What changes are being proposed?Israel’s right-wing government wants to change the makeup of a committee that selects judges to give representatives and appointees of the government a majority. The legislation would also restrict the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down laws passed by Parliament and weaken the authority of the attorney general, who is independent of the government.
What do opponents of the plan say?The front opposing the legislation, which includes Israelis largely from the center and left, argues that the overhaul would deal a mortal blow to the independence of the judiciary, which they view as the only check on government power. They say that the legislation would change the Israeli system from a liberal democracy with protections for minorities to a tyranny of majority rule.
Where does Benjamin Netanyahu stand?
In the past, Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister, was a staunch defender of the independence of the courts. His recent appointment of Yariv Levin, a leader of the judicial overhaul, to the role of justice minister signaled a turnaround, even though Netanyahu publicly promised that any changes would be measured and handled responsibly.
Is there room for compromise?The politicians driving the plan said they were prepared to talk and a group of academics and lawmakers, in the meantime, met behind the scenes for weeks to find a compromise. On March 15, the government rejected a compromise by Issac Herzog, the president of Israel, that was dismissed by Netanyahu soon after it was published.
“He should know what his neighbors think,” said Amit Eyal, 24, a medical student, adding, “I feel like I was born in one country and now it’s changing into another.”
When the police tried to move along the Eyals and other neighbors, they said they were just out for a walk and paraded around in a circle on the street.
“We are very busy people,” said Mr. Eyal’s mother, Sara Eyal, 58, a professor of pharmacy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “But speaking for myself, this is more important.”
Bills being hastily pushed through Parliament by the governing coalition would essentially give the government the power to appoint judges, severely curtail judicial review over legislation and allow the legislature to overturn Supreme Court rulings with a bare majority.
Critics say that the move would be dangerous in a country that lacks a formal written constitution or any other significant means of checking the government’s power.
Polls indicate that a majority oppose the proposed bills, and many older Israelis say the divisions the plans have wrought have provoked one of the country’s most perilous periods since the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, also known as the Yom Kippur War, or since the war in 1948 surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel.
Underpinning the protests in neighborhoods like Beit Hakerem and around the country is a broad, diverse alliance of grass-roots initiatives and organizations — representing women, the L.G.B.T.Q. community, veterans, the high-tech industry and health workers — that has come together to create one of the most sweeping popular struggles in decades.
Many communicate by word of mouth or through groups formed on WhatsApp and on other encrypted messaging platforms popular in Israel, which are often focused on workplaces, neighborhoods and communities.
An informal body known simply as “the struggle HQ” has amplified those messages, coordinating between the groups, advertising and helping set up stages and sound systems for the mass protests and planning for days of “national disruption” or “national resistance,” as weekday, countrywide protests have been called.
The group is staffed mainly by volunteers under the operational leadership of Eran Schwarz, an air force pilot turned social activist. A crowdfunding campaign had raised nearly 9 million shekels (about $2.5 million) as of Thursday and donations from businesspeople paid for a countrywide billboard campaign.
That is all helping to drive Israelis onto city streets, and in smaller communities, out to demonstrations at road junctions in more rural areas.
Israeli naval reservists protesting near the Haifa port. The mass demonstrations have brought together Israelis from a wide range of backgrounds.
Credit...Reuters
Parents and children have been rallying outside schools. Rainbow flags raised by L.G.B.T.Q. advocates mingle with blue and white Israeli flags that have become an emblem of the protest movement — an act of re-appropriation after years when the flag was more often raised at right-wing protests. Women’s rights activists dressed in red robes and white bonnets based on the dystopian novel and television series “The Handmaid’s Tale” weave through the crowds at demonstrations. Army reservists wear khaki T-shirts with the logo of the group “Brothers in Arms.” Farmers drive tractors in slow convoys to snarl traffic.
A group of 1973 war veterans stole an old tank from the Golan Heights and loaded it onto the bed of a truck, apparently intending to bring it to the center of Tel Aviv. They did not get far before the police stopped them.
Health workers in white coats have also become a visible feature of the protests.
“There is no health without democracy, and no equality in health care without democracy,” Dr. Hagai Levine, the former chairman of Israel’s Association of Public Health Physicians, said in an interview, explaining why doctors and nurses were mobilizing.
The health workers have set up WhatsApp groups with thousands of members to provide updates about local activities. They distribute what they call “prescriptions for democracy” and carry mock “casualties of dictatorship” on stretchers.
Israel’s vaunted high-tech industry has also been active in the protests, with some companies providing buses to ferry workers to mass rallies amid worries that investors will be scared away by the judicial changes.
Parents and children have been rallying outside schools. Rainbow flags raised by L.G.B.T.Q. advocates mingle with blue and white Israeli flags that have become an emblem of the protest movement — an act of re-appropriation after years when the flag was more often raised at right-wing protests. Women’s rights activists dressed in red robes and white bonnets based on the dystopian novel and television series “The Handmaid’s Tale” weave through the crowds at demonstrations. Army reservists wear khaki T-shirts with the logo of the group “Brothers in Arms.” Farmers drive tractors in slow convoys to snarl traffic.
A group of 1973 war veterans stole an old tank from the Golan Heights and loaded it onto the bed of a truck, apparently intending to bring it to the center of Tel Aviv. They did not get far before the police stopped them.
Health workers in white coats have also become a visible feature of the protests.
“There is no health without democracy, and no equality in health care without democracy,” Dr. Hagai Levine, the former chairman of Israel’s Association of Public Health Physicians, said in an interview, explaining why doctors and nurses were mobilizing.
The health workers have set up WhatsApp groups with thousands of members to provide updates about local activities. They distribute what they call “prescriptions for democracy” and carry mock “casualties of dictatorship” on stretchers.
Israel’s vaunted high-tech industry has also been active in the protests, with some companies providing buses to ferry workers to mass rallies amid worries that investors will be scared away by the judicial changes.
Tel Aviv last week, in one of many protests that have engulfed the commercial hub in recent weeks
.Credit...Ilan Rosenberg/Reuters
Thousands of other protesters have paid their way and funded their own activities.
“People are donating for the battle for democracy,” said Nadav Galon, a spokesman for the protest movement. “It’s a civil awakening.”
Veteran commanders and officers of the military’s armored corps have set up a protest tent between the Supreme Court and the Parliament.
“People have had enough,” said Ilan Feldman, 62, a tank brigade veteran, listing a litany of grievances, like exemptions from mandatory army service for ultra-Orthodox Jews and the fact that the prime minister is on trial for corruption. “The judicial reform plan is just the final straw,” he added.
Nurit Guy, 88, lost Shachar Guy, her son, who served in a tank crew, and an American volunteer soldier, Zvi Wolf, whom she had informally adopted, within a day of each other during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. She came alone one recent lunchtime to visit the veterans’ protest tent from her village in southern Israel.
Thousands of other protesters have paid their way and funded their own activities.
“People are donating for the battle for democracy,” said Nadav Galon, a spokesman for the protest movement. “It’s a civil awakening.”
Veteran commanders and officers of the military’s armored corps have set up a protest tent between the Supreme Court and the Parliament.
“People have had enough,” said Ilan Feldman, 62, a tank brigade veteran, listing a litany of grievances, like exemptions from mandatory army service for ultra-Orthodox Jews and the fact that the prime minister is on trial for corruption. “The judicial reform plan is just the final straw,” he added.
Nurit Guy, 88, lost Shachar Guy, her son, who served in a tank crew, and an American volunteer soldier, Zvi Wolf, whom she had informally adopted, within a day of each other during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. She came alone one recent lunchtime to visit the veterans’ protest tent from her village in southern Israel.
Many protesters communicate by word of mouth or through groups formed on WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging platforms that are popular in Israel.
Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
“Fear paralyzes,” she said. “My protest may not change what happens, but it means I didn’t sit quietly; I raised my voice,” she added.
Back in Beit Hakerem, a neighborhood that mostly votes for centrist or left-wing parties, people have been seething about the judicial overhaul plans for weeks.
On Fridays, about 50 residents regularly gather at a nearby junction and hold noisy protests with drums, whistles and horns.
It was fertile ground for the four activists who came from their own neighborhoods around Jerusalem to block Mr. Barkat’s home. One of them, Hagai Elron, 34, who runs a moving company, said they felt compelled to prevent the minister from leaving home.
“We say to the members of the government who are harming the citizens by going out to work that it’s preferable they stay home,” Mr. Elron said. (The protesters were removed after about an hour, clearing the way for Mr. Barkat to get to the office later without any apparent inconvenience.)
Across the road from the minister’s home, a neighbor had hung a red banner from a balcony reading, “Wake up Nir, the house is on fire.” Another wrote an anonymous poem and stuck it outside Mr. Barkat’s house.
“From enlightened neighbors he benefits,” it read. “But he is tearing the country to bits.”
“Fear paralyzes,” she said. “My protest may not change what happens, but it means I didn’t sit quietly; I raised my voice,” she added.
Back in Beit Hakerem, a neighborhood that mostly votes for centrist or left-wing parties, people have been seething about the judicial overhaul plans for weeks.
On Fridays, about 50 residents regularly gather at a nearby junction and hold noisy protests with drums, whistles and horns.
It was fertile ground for the four activists who came from their own neighborhoods around Jerusalem to block Mr. Barkat’s home. One of them, Hagai Elron, 34, who runs a moving company, said they felt compelled to prevent the minister from leaving home.
“We say to the members of the government who are harming the citizens by going out to work that it’s preferable they stay home,” Mr. Elron said. (The protesters were removed after about an hour, clearing the way for Mr. Barkat to get to the office later without any apparent inconvenience.)
Across the road from the minister’s home, a neighbor had hung a red banner from a balcony reading, “Wake up Nir, the house is on fire.” Another wrote an anonymous poem and stuck it outside Mr. Barkat’s house.
“From enlightened neighbors he benefits,” it read. “But he is tearing the country to bits.”
IT'S NOT A DEMOCRACY IT'S A JEWISH STATE
COMPROMISE IS THE ANSWER
PM Benjamin Netanyahu has signaled he’s willing to back off on some of his hard-right coalition’s extreme proposals for judicial reform—which might be the way out of this crisis.
Josh Feldman
Published Mar. 17, 2023
OPINION
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Reuters
To watch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of late has been to watch a game of escalating recklessness played out on a national scale. Desperate to extricate himself from his corruption trial, he has formed an unprecedentedly hardline coalition, which on one hand has given power to bigots and extremists long confined to Israel’s fringe and on the other is pushing radical judicial reforms that risk tearing the country apart—both socially and democratically.
Erstwhile known in Israel for his cautious governance, Netanyahu has unleashed a judicial reform package so far-reaching, with his coalition pushing it through at breakneck speed, that it has sparked accusations of a “judicial coup” and mass nationwide protests. A raft of catastrophic warnings from myriad corners of Israeli society have simultaneously flooded in, ranging from senior military and security officials, to leading economists, to Israel’s historically apolitical president, who last week decried the reforms as “oppressive.”
This Extremist Could Destroy Israel as We Know It
WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE?
Josh Feldman
But despite the external impression that the Jewish state is teetering on the edge of disaster, Netanyahu appears to be softening his stance on the proposed judicial reforms at the heart of the unrest—to not only be more palatable to the Israeli mainstream but to, in fact, strengthen Israel’s democracy.
There is clear consensus support in Israel for judicial reform. Israelis know the courts are too powerful and that long-overdue, constructive changes to the system would enhance Israel’s democratic status. Indeed, a recent poll from the Jewish People Policy Institute found that only 16 percent of Israelis oppose the idea of judicial reforms. The uproar in Israel is not born out of opposition to reforms per se, but rather a combination of widespread distrust of Netanyahu’s coalition, and the proposed reforms’ radical nature, which as they stand would essentially neuter Israel’s Supreme Court.
Netanyahu understands this, and after being caught off guard by “the vehemence of the resistance [and] the vehemence of the anger” at the reforms, as The Times of Israel’s Haviv Rettig Gur put it, he is now trying to drag his coalition back from the edge.
The signs have been there for weeks. On Feb. 15, Israeli media reported that Netanyahu had sought to water down the reforms, at which Justice Minister Yariv Levin—who, alongside MK Simcha Rothman, is the reforms’ key proponent—threatened to resign and topple the coalition. One week later, in a social media post, Netanyahu declared: “Citizens of Israel, it’s time to talk,” while also emphasizing the need “to reach agreements or at least reduce the disagreements between us.”
Then again, on March 3, reports emerged that the prime minister had abandoned a plan to announce a temporary halt to the reforms after Levin again threatened to quit “if the legislation was paused for so much as a day,” according to The Times of Israel. On March 13, in a transparent call for dampening the reforms, he tweeted a Wall Street Journal editorial on the issue. “The right may have to compromise. The left may have to calm down,” the subheading read.
I Was Canceled for Criticizing Israel
CORPORATE MEDIA CENSORSHIP
Katie Halper
Bibi, it seems, has begun to confront this mess that he brought upon himself and is desperately trying to fix it before it’s too late.
He “shot himself in both legs,” says veteran Israeli commentator Ehud Yaari, and is “limping as fast as he can towards a compromise.” He’s even called in the reserves. In yet another signal of his desire to block legislation that would damage Israel’s democracy, Netanyahu has reportedly tasked long-time confidant and former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer with solving the crisis.
While much of his party has remained publicly silent over their alleged concerns, Netanyahu is not alone in attempting to bridge the divide. Earlier this month, senior Likud MKs Yuli Edelstein and Danny Danon signed an open letter calling for dialogue and a negotiated compromise. On Tuesday, the Kohelet Policy Forum, which was instrumental in formulating the current legislation, publicly called for compromise in order to reach a “broad consensus,” and suggested that the “override clause”—widely viewed as the most dangerous of the reforms—could be scrapped altogether.
Even Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who is not exactly known for political moderation—predicted on Tuesday that the legislation will be softened to something acceptable to Israel’s “mainstream.”
None of this is a given, of course. Not only is there immense pushback against compromise from coalition figures such as Levin, but, as Rettig Gur explains, “Every single party in the coalition actually has a different aspect of this reform that it cannot let go of.” Even if most coalition members are willing to alter the legislation, opposition from just one party in Netanyahu’s fractious government could bring it all crashing down.
Israel Could Be Headed for a Cold Civil War
HOT HEADS IN THE HOLY LAND
Lloyd Green
Such internal pressure, according to Haaretz’s Anshel Pfeffer, is exactly why Netanyahu rejected President Isaac Herzog’s long awaited proposal which aimed to serve as a foundation for widely accepted judicial reforms. “Netanyahu himself, frantic to defuse this crisis which is sapping his government of public support and endangering the Israeli economy, would have taken it,” Pfeffer writes. “But not his cabinet colleagues and coalition partners.”
There are no shortcuts in the path ahead for Israel’s longest-serving premier. A public discussion about the power imbalance between the courts and government was long overdue, and rather than approach it in a responsible manner, Netanyahu let his coalition partners exploit a genuine issue to push an agenda that threatens Israel’s very democratic and social fiber. But he’s now desperately working to find his way back. If he succeeds, he may well help pass “a reform that would leave Israel not just not weaker and less democratic,” Rettig Gur says, “but actually by reaching a middle ground would leave it stronger and more democratic than before.”
Now that would be one hell of a coup.
No comments:
Post a Comment