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Once again, a massive protest took place this Saturday in Tel Aviv and other cities in Israel, in a sample of the constancy that has characterized the movement that has met at least twice a week for more than four months. The motivation of the protesters is their strong opposition to the judicial reform project promoted by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli protesters against the reform of the country’s judicial system are not letting up.
This Saturday, thousands of them gathered again in different cities in Israel —as they have been doing for 18 weeks—, to show their opposition to the project that the government coalition, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wants to carry out.
Hundreds of citizens took to the streets of Rehovot, a town located in the center of Israel, to express their discontent. There, carrying the national banner and blocking a major traffic junction, the attendees made their voices heard. However, as has been customary since the start of the social movement in January, it was in the large coastal city of Tel Aviv that the largest number of opponents was concentrated.
In Habima Square, a crowd of thousands of protesters gathered and then marched down Kaplan Street, carrying Israeli flags and chanting slogans against the prime minister.
On March 27, Netanyahu had announced a “pause” to give a “chance (…) to dialogue.” A measure that did not prevent the mobilization from continuing. This Saturday, in a statement, the organizers of the rallies once again accused the prime minister of wanting to transform Israel into a “dangerous and messianic dictatorship.” They also accused him of endangering the country’s economy.
“As long as the talks at the president’s residence continue, no investment will enter Israel and the economy will collapse,” they said.
A project that creates a polarization of the country
The President of the State of Israel, Isaac Herzog, has been in negotiations since March 28 with representatives of the Government and the opposition to reach a compromise on the terms of this reform. But so far, the talks appear to be deadlocked.
In addition, during previous rallies, protesters against the reform have begun to add other demands, such as the high cost of living or the demand for equality with respect to military service, from which the ultra-Orthodox are exempt. The demonstrators demonstrate, in this way, that social anger is expanding.
But in judicial reform, where it is at the origin of the largest social movement ever observed in the Hebrew country, it also has its supporters. On April 27 in Jerusalem, the supporters of the text mobilized massively after the call of the coalition in power. Nearly 200,000 people demonstrated before the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) in favor of the project. Most were religious families from illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
For their part, the spokesmen for the social movement opposed to the reform affirm that they want to fight to defend the State and democracy. His movement is the largest uprising in the country’s history and seeks, above all, to protect a secular state against the crushing of counter-powers. And it is that the reform promoted by Netanyahu and his extreme right government, one of the most religious in the country’s history, aspires to free the Executive from independent judicial supervision.
If critics of the project consider that it risks opening the way to an authoritarian drift, the Netanyahu government affirms that its text seeks, among other things, to rebalance powers, reducing the prerogatives of the Supreme Court, which it considers politicized, in favor of of Parliament.
with AFP
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