Mass demonstrations for and against the government’s judicial overhaul took place in Israel on Sunday night as lawmakers debated the controversial legislation in the Knesset parliament ahead of a vote on Monday.
After 28 weeks of the biggest mass protest movement in the country’s history, a huge crowd of opponents of the judicial reform gathered close to the Knesset in Jerusalem, while supporters of the government held a counter rally in Tel Aviv entitled The Million Come to Tel Aviv.
From afar, the gatherings looked identical: tens of thousands of protesters waving Israeli flags – a mirror image of a country torn in two.
The Bill, which is expected to be approved by lawmakers on Monday afternoon, is only a small part of the initial radical legislation which is designed to weaken the power of the judiciary and which opponents claim will undermine Israeli democracy by altering the traditional system of constitutional checks and balances.
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It will cancel the “reasonableness clause” which allows the high court of justice to block government decisions if it deems them unreasonable.
Coalition members have vowed to introduce other Bills in the future which will give the government control over appointing judges and weaken the power of government legal advisers. Members of the right wing and religious coalition claim the overhaul is needed to curb what they claim are the excessive powers of unelected, liberal judges.
Adding to the drama, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Saturday underwent emergency surgery at Tel Aviv’s Sheba hospital and was fitted with a pacemaker. Doctors revealed that Mr Netanyahu had been suffering from a minor heart condition for many years.
Mr Netanyahu is expected to be released from hospital on Monday, in time to participate in the Knesset vote. He issued a video clip explaining that he was feeling fine but trips to Cyprus and Turkey this week were cancelled.
President Yitzhak Herzog, who has been trying to broker a compromise over the judicial overhaul, returned to Israel on Sunday evening from a US trip, and drove straight to Sheba hospital for unscheduled talks with Mr Netanyahu. “This is a time of emergency. An agreement must be reached,” said Mr Herzog, before meeting with opposition leader Yair Lapid on Sunday night.
Protest movement leaders claim that a record 550,000 people turned out for countrywide demonstrations on Saturday night despite statements from cabinet ministers that the government was determined to pass the legislation into law as is.
Business leaders threatened wide-scale strikes if the reasonableness clause was cancelled but most worrying for the government was the growing tide of reserve soldiers threatening to refuse call-up orders.
The Brothers and Sisters in Arms protest organisation said 10,000 reservists would stop volunteering if Israel “becomes a dictatorship”. On Friday, more than 1,000 airforce personnel, including hundreds of pilots and navigators, announced a similar move. The practical implication of their threat, if they followed through, would be the unprecedented loss of the Israeli airforce’s operational readiness.
