Jerusalem (EFE) plan after the pulse cast by the massive wave of protests.
In the midst of a general strike, between the stoppage of key infrastructure such as the Tel Aviv Airport, road blockades and acts of civil disobedience since last night, tens of thousands of Israelis surrounded Parliament to reiterate their strong opposition to the plan.
It was the high point of a sustained protest movement that cornered the right-wing executive, forced Netanyahu to back down and made a show of civic force unprecedented in Israel.
unprecedented mobilizations
Proof of this was the great extension of the spontaneous protests yesterday throughout the country after the dismissal of the Defense Minister, when more than 600,000 people took to the streets, and which continued today with a new round of mobilizations in Jerusalem, one of the most massive in recent decades in the Holy City.
Many of those mobilized saw the paralysis of the reform as “a victory” for the citizen mobilization, but agree that they will not stop the protests until it is buried.
“We have to continue protesting” because “the government is going too far,” Becca Sousa, a 59-year-old woman who, like many other mobilized people, waved the Israeli flag and urged the Executive to keep the pulse to completely overthrow the plan, told EFE.
She was also skeptical of Netanyahu’s move to paralyze the reform. As other protesters reiterated, she sees it as a move to “get people to go home” and then resume the process without opposition, “when everyone is already calm and relaxed.”
preserve democracy
The reform would undermine Israel’s judicial independence, separation of powers and formal democratic foundations, critics say, prompting in particular the rather secular and liberal sectors of the population to take to the streets for the past three months.
This includes people who had not participated in protests before, such as Daniela, a 64-year-old woman who joined the protests.
In turn, both she and other attendees agreed that the protests “are not from the left or the right,” but from the fight for Israel “to remain a democratic state, that’s all.”
Dotán Beck, a 28-year-old student who traveled expressly to Jerusalem from the city of Herzliya to be in the mobilization “until it is necessary”, expressed himself in a similar vein.
“I think Israel will get much stronger and become a better democracy at the end of it all. We are here so that this happens as quickly as possible, ”he told EFE while wearing a flag of the country.
The Palestinians, largely absent
In this wave of protests, the great absentees are the Palestinians. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, 20% of the population, have not felt compelled to protest. To a large extent they believe that their rights as a minority are not really being claimed and see what happened as a conflict between sectors of Jewish-Israeli society.
The Palestinian question and the occupation of the Palestinian territories were not priority issues in the protests, although as on other days, today there was a small group of Israeli activists who displayed Palestinian flags and called for an end to the occupation.
“There is no such thing as democracy with occupation,” this group of protesters chanted, as what appeared to be undercover Israeli police officers seized their flags and arrested some of them.
Growing polarization in Israel
The controversy surrounding judicial reform has also aggravated the polarization of Israeli society, and Jerusalem witnessed this today. After the massive protest of the anti-reform demonstrators, far-right and right-wing partners of the Israeli government such as Minister Bezalel Smotrich called their supporters to gather in the Holy City in a counter-demonstration that was also extensive.
“The people demand judicial reform”, sang thousands of people who also gathered near the Parliament, in a protest that, among others, brought together religious Zionists, Netanyahu voters, Orthodox Jews, residents of the colonies in the occupied West Bank or fans far-right member of the Beitar Jerusalem football club.
All this, in the midst of a growing tension in which the internal conflicts of the Israeli population are accentuated. Netanyahu warned of this today and said that the country is heading towards “a dangerous clash”, for which he urged action to avoid “a civil war”.
By Joan Mas Autonell