In the midst of months-long anti-regime demonstrations, tens of thousands of Israelis have traveled to the occupied city of al-Quds to express their opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extreme policies.
On Saturday, the protesters carried Israeli flags and chanted anti-regime chants as they made their way through the winding highway to al-Quds in the scorching sun.
Before Sunday’s debate and vote on Netanyahu’s contentious “judicial reforms” bill, which has thrown Israel into one of its worst political crises, protesters intend to hold a rally in front of parliament.
Netanyahu wants to give the extremist cabinet of the regime more sway over choosing the Supreme Court’s judges under his plan for a judicial overhaul, while also giving politicians and the Knesset more power to overturn the court’s decisions.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has been urged to cancel the vote and instead negotiate widely supported reforms by dozens of former security officials, including heads of the Israeli military, police, and Mossad.
They claimed in a letter on Saturday that the legislation was “crushing those things shared by Israeli society, is tearing the people apart, is disintegrating the military, and inflicting fatal blows on Israel’s security.”
When Netanyahu unveiled the plan in January, it set off months of previously unheard-of anti-Netanyahu protests. The prime minister, who is currently on trial for corruption, was criticized for the plan by opponents as a threat to the independence of the judiciary.
Those who support the plan contend that it introduces some balance in the power that the various branches of the government wield. On the other side of the coin, those who oppose the plan claim that, if it were to be ratified, it would give the ruling class more authority to act authoritarian.
Netanyahu announced a halt to his efforts to get the plan approved by the Knesset in late March after being confronted with ferocious protests and a wave of widespread industrial actions in support of those protests.
The goal of the original judicial reform proposal was to prevent the Supreme Court from overturning legislative actions.
According to pro-Netanyahu legislators, the new bill would be a much softer version of earlier proposals that sought to almost completely roll back the Supreme Court’s authority to rule against the executive. However, the opposition claims that the new bill would still leave room for corruption.
Gali Baharav-Miara, the general prosecutor of the government, has charged that Netanyahu’s support for the reforms is “illegal.” She pointed out that the prime minister is attempting to advance the plan in light of his protracted corruption trial, in which he is charged with fraud and breach of trust.
