Despite the opposition divisions, some 70,000 people have demonstrated against the government of Netanyahu, the most important mobilization of recent years.
by CLOTHILDE MRAFFKO (Tel- Aviv, Special Envoy)
Since the return of Benyamin Netanyahu in power, on December 29, 2022, the weekly demonstrations after Shabbat, on Saturday evening, resumed in Israel. In 2020, the mobilization had lasted months against the Prime Minister prosecuted for corruption; It is even more massive since its new far -right government has been sworn in. Some 70,000 demonstrators according to the police went down to the streets of Tel Aviv, Saturday January 14 – the largest mobilization of recent years.
The procession overflowed into the adjacent streets in Place Habima, in the heart of the city, tide of Israeli umbrellas and flags in the middle of which emerged some LGBT banners. The majority protested against the reform of justice, unveiled on January 4 by the Keeper of the Seals, Yariv Levin. The government intends in particular to weaken the power of supervision of the Supreme Court on the laws voted by the deputies at the Knesset and would like to politicize the appointments of judges and legal advisers.
Before the demonstrators, the former Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni accused the coalition of “proceeding with a political takeover of the country and of carrying out a war against its democratic institutions”. “Dé-Mo-Cra-Tie!” Chasse the demonstrators in chorus. In the crowd, mainly composed of secular and liberal Israelis, of which Tel Aviv is the bastion, we are worried about the directions of the government. “We do not want to become a theocracy; the members of the coalition are religious extremists,” explains Thomas Ofir, 26, a student. Others fear discrimination against the LGBT community.
unpublished critic
“A few months ago, there was a huge demonstration, the mother of all the demonstrations. Millions of people went down to the streets to vote”, retorted them on Sunday, Benyamin Netanyahu during the ministers. However, if the Prime Minister can take advantage of a comfortable majority, after four years of political instability, he must also face the sling of institutions which, in Israel, president of the destinies of the country – sometimes even more than ephemeral political coalitions.
The most virulent criticism came from the president of the Supreme Court, Esther Hayut. She is unprecedented: never a judge at the head of this institution had thus emerged from her reserve. “This is a unbridled attack against the judicial system, as if it represented an enemy who was to be fought and crushed,” said the magistrate on January 12, at a conference in Haifa, in the North from the country. Rumors suggest that it will resign if the reform is adopted.
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