The country is in turmoil, and you can see it everywhere, it can be heard everywhere: With loud chants calling for “democracy,” with drums and horns and with a deafening noise, tens of thousands marched through Israel’s streets again on Tuesday. The protest movement has called for a “Day of Resistance” against the right-wing religious government’s plans to restructure the judicial system. The struggle has been going on for months, but now the mood is approaching boiling point, in all drama. According to a survey by TV station Channel 12, 67 percent of Israelis now fear that civil war could break out in their country.
The fronts have been clear for a long time, but now they have hardened again: On the one hand there is the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been following a zigzag course in the matter of judicial restructuring for months. In March, under pressure from mass protests, he stopped the reform plans in favor of seeking a compromise with the opposition. But now, under intense pressure from his coalition partners, he appears poised to push through at least the first part – a law that would strip the Supreme Court of the right to dismiss government decisions as “inappropriate.” As early as next week, immediately before the summer break, it is to be finally adopted by Parliament in the second and third reading.
The protest movement blocked roads, besieged train stations and stormed the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange
The protest movement has made it its mission to prevent precisely this – using all means of civilian and non-violent resistance. With the blue and white flags of the Israeli state in hand, people want to demonstrate throughout the week if necessary. No one should doubt the determination of the wide-ranging movement, which is now in its 29th week.
On Tuesday, the demonstrators turned up wherever they could hope for and arouse attention: they stormed the stock exchange in Tel Aviv to draw attention to the dangers for Israel’s economy, especially the high-tech sector, from the planned state restructuring. They went to the rabbinical courts to warn against the reorganization of democracy in the direction of a Jewish theocracy. They blocked roads and besieged train stations across the country.
The protest was particularly loud in front of the headquarters of the trade union umbrella organization Histadrut. With 800,000 members, it is a huge power factor in Israel with its ten million inhabitants. In March, the declaration of a general strike was one of the factors that stopped Netanyahu. But now the union leadership is hesitating, infuriating demonstrators like Avner Itai. “They should actually be the leaders of the protests, but they don’t do anything,” he complains. “That’s stupid.”
89-year-old Avner Itai, with his son next to him, goes to the protests almost every week. He urges unions to get more involved.
(Photo: Peter Münch)
Avner Itai is 89 years old and goes to the demonstrations almost every week. “But I have to pay a little attention to my health,” he says. He stands for all those who built the country – and now fear that democracy will be taken away from them by a right-wing government that can find blueprints for its restructuring plans in countries like Hungary or Poland.
Beyond the union or the economy, however, there is a far more sensitive area where the protest movement can hit the government hard: the army. So far, it has always been the greatest common denominator in the Jewish state, its guarantee of existence in the face of the enemies all around. But now the conflict over judicial reform is also casting a dark shadow over the relationship between the government and the armed forces. Thousands of reservists are threatening to withdraw from reserve duty if the government doesn’t stop their plans.
There are many pilots and other members of elite units on whose reserve duty the effectiveness of the army depends. The fear that Israel could then only be partially defensive had impressed Netanyahu in March. But now he seems to want to ignore this threat as well. He now calls such a refusal to serve in the reserve “illegal” and puts it close to a coup. “In a democracy,” he explains, “the military is subordinate to the elected government, not the other way around.”
How heated the mood is in the country could be felt on the streets on Tuesday. The demonstrators not only clashed with the police. There were also occasional heated arguments with passers-by or drivers on blocked roads. Israel is a deeply divided country, and hardly anyone is left building bridges.