Israeli Airport is Overrun with Protesters Following Government Moves to Restrain the Judiciary
Israeli Airport is Overrun with Protesters Following Government Moves to Restrain the Judiciary
To protest an overnight vote in Parliament that advanced efforts by the far-right ruling coalition to limit judicial oversight of the government, tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated across the country on Tuesday, blocking the road outside the country’s main airport and approximately a dozen other thoroughfares and clashing with police officers.
A picture that was more reminiscent of a packed sports stadium than an airport taxi rank was created when thousands of demonstrators flooded into the roadway alongside the main terminal at Ben-Gurion International Airport. They honked their horns, chanted slogans, and held up scores of Israeli flags in a scenario that was reminiscent of a chaotic airport.
In what the organisers of the protest referred to as a “day of disruption,” other people participated in demonstrations in at least 20 other towns and cities, frequently obstructing traffic until they were dispersed by police officers.
Tents were set up by one faction of the demonstrators at a key intersection in the middle of Israel. A second group of people assembled in front of the United States consular building in Tel Aviv, where they demanded that the administration of President Biden do more to assist their cause. Israel receives annual military assistance from the United States totaling more than $3 billion dollars.
Israeli opposition members believe that the United States government ought to take an even tougher stance, despite the fact that President Biden has been sceptical of the plan to alter the court system and has labelled the present Israeli government as the most extremist he has come across throughout his political career.
Women’s rights activists marched through the city of Tel Aviv while clad in crimson robes inspired by characters from “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a novel written by Margaret Atwood about a patriarchal and totalitarian state. The novel was a show of support from doctors who gathered outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art to demonstrate their solidarity.
The amount of disruption that was observed in March, when key trade unions shut down large portions of the Israeli economy in protest of the government’s earlier moves to curtail judicial power, did not climb to the levels that were seen during the current round of demonstrations. However, the demonstrations led to frequent skirmishes between demonstrators and police officers, who used water cannons to spray protestors in multiple towns and detained at least 71 individuals in an effort to disperse the crowds and put an end to the demonstrations.
The continued demonstrations made it clear that the discussion on the reform of the legal system is far from ended. After a three-month hiatus during which the government and the opposition attempted to find a consensus but were unsuccessful in doing so, Israeli officials are once again moving forward with aspects of the plan, which is creating resentment among a wide variety of people.
Since the initial wave of demonstrations that began in late March, the administration has put legislative efforts to give itself more control over the nomination of judges on hold, although it has not totally abandoned them. In the same interview from the previous week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that he would not move forward with proposals to let Parliament reverse rulings made by the Supreme Court.
However, in order to appease friends on the far right, Mr. Netanyahu is continuing to push forward with a less prominent element of the proposal that would place restrictions on the instances in which the Supreme Court could rule against the will of Parliament. And it was just this plan that served as the spark for the demonstrations on Tuesday.
The rallies brought to light the political predicament in which Mr. Netanyahu finds himself: he runs the risk of either igniting popular discontent if he continues with the judicial overhaul, or he runs the risk of causing the dissolution of his conservative coalition if he stops it.
This disagreement is a microcosm of a larger social divide that exists between those who support the administration and its agenda—namely, the formation of a more religious and nationalist state—and those who oppose it—namely, those who favour a more secular and pluralistic society. A fundamental divergence of opinion regarding the nature and trajectory of democratic institutions in Israel is another factor that contributed to the rift.
The administration claims that the plan will improve the democratic system by providing elected parliamentarians more authority than unelected courts. This will make elected lawmakers more powerful than unelected judges.
In a video message that was sent out on Monday, only a few minutes before the vote in the parliamentary session, Netanyahu stated that the plan “is not the end of democracy but rather the strengthening of democracy.”
However, detractors are concerned that the strategy will weaken democracies by doing away with judicial monitoring, which could lead to excessive government activity.
Tali Haran-Binun, 48, a social worker from Jerusalem, stated at a demonstration that took place close to the Supreme Court that “We stand here for the democracy of Israel.” “We will not allow those individuals to strip us of our democratic rights.”
Protesters assert that if there were limitations placed on the power of the judiciary, it would be simpler for the current administration to drop the corruption allegations that have been brought against Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently under investigation. He asserts that there was no misconduct on his part and has refuted any claims that he intends to use his position to obstruct the legal proceeding.
The nocturnal vote, in which parliamentarians granted preliminary support to a bill that would curtail the manner in which the Supreme Court can overrule elected authorities, was the spark that ignited the demonstrations that took place on Tuesday. The vote was 64 to 56, and it was won by the majority.
If the law is approved in two more votes in the following weeks,
it will prevent the court from using the legal norm of “reasonableness” to order the government to do something it does not want to do.
Courts all around the world, including those in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, apply the reasonableness test as a legal criterion. If a court determines that a decision was taken without taking into account all of the relevant concerns, without assigning meaningful weight to each issue, or that it attached too much weight to considerations that were not significant, then the result is considered to be irrational.
