Mobilized in particular against a reform project which aims to weaken the judiciary, the opposition to Benyamin Netanyahu remains deeply divided.
by Clothilde Mraffko (Jerusalem, Correspondence)
The return of Benyamin Netanyahu in power, it is also the resumption of weekly demonstrations after Shabbat, Saturday evening, in Israel. In 2020, the mobilization had lasted months against the Prime Minister in trial for corruption; It is even more massive since the new far -right government was sworn in on December 29, 2022. A unofficial countdown counted some 80,000 demonstrators this Saturday, January 14 – the previous week, they were 30,000.
Most concentrate their grievances against the reform of justice presented on January 4 by the Keeper of the Seals, Yariv Levin. The new coalition provides in particular to weaken the supervision power of the Supreme Court and to politicize the appointments of judges and legal advisers.
From Place Habima, in the heart of Tel Aviv, the procession overflowed in the surrounding streets, tide of white and blue Israeli flags under the storm showers. The former magistrate of the Supreme Court Ayala Frocaccia, the first personality to be expressed, deplored the “beginning of a new era with a new definition of democracy: not a democracy based on values, but a truncated democracy which rests entirely on the “will of the” will “.
The opposition leaders were discreet – at the request of the organizers, according to the Journal Haaretz -, the outgoing Prime Minister, Yaïr Lapid, was absent. The former Minister of Defense Benny Gantz, who briefly made a coalition with Netanyahu between 2020 and 2021, however quickly took the megaphone, promising to use “all legal means to avoid a coup”. Other more limited demonstrations took place in Jerusalem and Haifa, a large city in the north of the country.
the fear of a change of diet
The rally on Saturday was the highlight of a week of sling against the reform of justice which risks destabilizing the balance of institutional powers in Israel, in particular by granting parliamentarians the right to modify the laws to The absolute majority, without the Supreme Court being able to really oppose it. The president of the institution, Esther Hayut, severely condemned, Thursday, January 12, the government’s attempt to reduce justice to “a silent institution”.
“This is a unbridled attack against the judicial system, as if it was an enemy who was to be fought and crushed,” said the magistrate at a conference in Haifa. Such an outing, from the chief judge, is unprecedented in Israel. Several hundred lawyers have demonstrated against the reform and a dozen former prosecutors have published a letter of protest.
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