Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul sparks huge protests in Israel

Protesters came by bus from Haifa, train from Tel Aviv and car from the occupied Golan Heights. They carried Israeli flags, megaphones and homemade banners. And they were chanting for democracy, freedom and judicial independence.

The demonstrators gathered to oppose a sweeping judicial overhaul proposed by Israel’s new government — the most right-wing and religiously conservative in the country’s history — that has bitterly divided Israelis. The changes, envisioned by the governing coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would reduce the Supreme Court’s ability to revoke laws passed in parliament and give the government greater influence over who gets to be a judge.

The demonstration followed a dramatic televised speech Sunday night by Israel’s mainly ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, in which he called for compromise and warned that the crisis had left the country “on the brink of constitutional and social collapse,” and possibly “a violent clash.”

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog addresses the European Parliament plenary ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Brussels, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/File)

The government says that the changes represent a much-needed reform of a judiciary that has become too powerful. Amid a highly charged public debate, leaders on both sides have accused each other of attempting a coup.

On Monday, after opposition legislators disrupted a parliamentary committee that advanced the proposed bill, Netanyahu berated opposition leaders, telling them to “stop intentionally derailing the country into anarchy.”

The protest followed weeks of regular demonstrations in Tel Aviv, where a similar number of people have gathered every Saturday night since the start of the year.

Inside parliament, a government-controlled committee voted Monday to advance part of the proposed legislation.

An aerial view shows Israelis holding flags as they demonstrate on the day Israel’s constitution committee is set to start voting on changes that would give politicians more power on selecting judges while limiting Supreme Court powers to strike down legislation, in front of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament in Jerusalem, February 13, 2023. (Reuters)

The vote set off a fracas in the committee room after opposition lawmakers, one of them in tears, chanted against the decision, and some of them clambered over tables to confront the committee chair, Simcha Rothman, a government lawmaker.

The conflict over the law is only at its beginning. Monday’s committee vote set the stage for a debate on the floor of Parliament in the coming days — the first step toward turning the plan into law in the coming months.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.