The new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has drawn the ire of thousands of Israelis with measures they claim endanger democracy and freedoms.
Days after the inauguration of the most right-wing and religiously conservative administration in the nation’s 74-year history, demonstrators gathered in Tel Aviv. It has broad reforms in mind, including diminishing the judiciary’s authority and growing illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Signs with the messages “Democracy in jeopardy” and “Together against fascism and apartheid” were carried by protesters.
“Housing, Livelihood, Hope” was written on another banner. Rainbow flags were carried by some protesters.
Members of Israel’s Knesset who identify as left-wing and Palestinian spearheaded the demonstration.
They criticized Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who revealed the government’s long-promised revamp of the legal system on Wednesday with the intention of undermining the country’s Supreme Court.
The plan, according to critics, will upend Israel’s system of checks and balances and damage its democratic institutions by granting the next ruling coalition full authority, upending Israel’s legal system and undermining its institutions of democracy.
Danny Simon, 77, a demonstrator from Yavne, south of Tel Aviv, stated, “We are extremely frightened that our country is going to lose the democracy and we are heading to a dictatorship just for reasons of one person who wants to get rid of his law trial.”
He was referring to Netanyahu, who was charged with corruption in 2021 but the prime leader has consistently refuted the claims.
With two terms as prime minister, from 2009 to 2021, Netanyahu, 73, has already held the position for the longest period of time in Israeli history. Along with some far-right figures, such as one who formerly housed a portrait of a murderer who murdered dozens of Palestinian worshippers in his home, his new government includes a legislator who acknowledged to tax cheating late last year.
On Saturday, demonstrators urged harmony and tolerance between the nation’s Jewish and Palestinian citizens.
Standing Together, a grassroots movement of Palestinians and Jews, was founded by Rula Daood. “We can see right now many laws being advocated for against LGBTQ, against Palestinians, against larger minorities in Israel,” she said.
We are here to state unequivocally that we all—Arabs, Jews, and members of other communities in Israel—demand peace, equality, and justice.
The Israeli government’s plan is “clerical, racist,” and “of the extremist right,” according to Israeli political analyst Akiva Eldar, who spoke to Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv.
“This is a very superficial, or formal democracy; this is a kind of Hungarian or Polish democracy that is now being challenged in the European court in the EU, as the former president of the supreme court, Aharon Barak, stated yesterday in a very unusual interview.
“I know that academics and teachers are thinking of going on a full strike to protest… You could see that in yesterday’s march that the Israeli Jews and the Palestinians of 1948 have something in common, Eldar added.
“In my opinion, the government overstepped its bounds. After what they did on Friday, punishing Palestinians collectively… because – this government is using, this sounds ridiculous – they call it diplomatic terror, we will probably hear from the international community.
“Bringing Israel before the Security Council of the UN is regarded as something that calls for collective punishment. They may be shaking things up a bit too much, in my opinion.
