After almost 30 weeks of protests in an Israel more divided than ever, the announcement of thousands of reservists to resign from their voluntary service, the warnings from the business community, the union and the US president Joe Biden, a general strike, adverse polls, the fall in the value of the shekel and the rise in tension, the Government voted in the Knéset the first law included in his judicial reform plan. The controversial project launched in January by the ultra-conservative coalition has uncovered an identity war that fractures the country at one of its most tense moments.
By caving in to the more militant wing of his government in favor of limiting the power of the supreme court (TS), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu avoids a political crisis that would have shaken the chair he has held again for seven months, but aggravates a broader and even historic one at a national, economic, social and diplomatic level with already tangible effects on the army.
“Bibi has a coalition, but she lost her people,” says the former head of internal security (Shabak), Nadav Argaman, on who was his direct boss (2016-2021) after the approval of the law that annuls the “reasonableness criterion” with which the TS could, among other instruments, intervene in decisions, appointments and dismissals of the Government.
Minutes after the vote (64 against due to the boycott of the opposition deputies who left the plenary shouting “shame” after presenting a record of 27,676 reservations to the amendment), tens of thousands of Israelis renewed the wave of protests while various appeals were sent to the TS to be struck down. The opposition promises to annul it if it returns to the Government.
“We took a necessary democratic action. Fulfilling the will of the voter is not the end of democracy, but rather the essence of democracy,” he declared. Netanyahu in a television intervention in which he pointed out that for three months they agreed to stop the legislation and offered dialogue to the opposition about the reform.