Massive protest march reaches Jerusalem after 5-day trek from Tel Aviv
A mile-long column of anti-government protesters marched into Jerusalem on Saturday evening, turning the main road into the city into a sea of blue and white Israeli flags, to protest the far-right government’s plan to curtail the judiciary.
In temperatures reaching nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit at times, hundreds of protesters had been marching since Tuesday evening from Tel Aviv, a coastal city about 40 miles away, and had camped along the route for four nights. Many more joined them over the next few days and by Saturday the number of protesters had risen to at least 20,000 despite the scorching heat.
By the time the march reached the outskirts of Jerusalem on Saturday, protesters were lined up 10 abreast, forcing cars into one lane. The motorcade stretched for at least two miles and included people in motorized wheelchairs and at least one person on crutches.
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” said Ilana Holzman, 65, a Tel Aviv protester who had joined the march before the final leg on Saturday.
“I think this is the only place to be right now,” Ms. Holzman said. “Not on the beach and not in the air conditioner. Here you see the people of Israel at its best. It is terribly hot, but they march on.”
The unusual spectacle reflected the intensity of emotions that swept through Israeli society over the weekend as the ruling coalition prepares to pass a law in the coming days that would limit the ways the Supreme Court can overturn government decisions.
The country’s largest trade union, the Histadrut, announced on Saturday night that it was holding an emergency meeting in response to the government’s plan, amid speculation it could call a general strike.
A tent city rose in a Jerusalem park below the parliament building as some of the protesters who had marched into the city settled in for what could be more stormy days of protest ahead.
Hundreds of thousands of other protesters simultaneously held rallies in dozens of cities across the country for the 29th consecutive week. A group representing military reservists from all branches of the military announced that about 10,000 Israelis have declared they will no longer show up for reserve duty if the law is passed, in addition to more than 1,000 Air Force members who have made similar threats in recent days.
And a group of former senior Israeli security leaders released a joint letter calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to postpone a vote on the law unless it is revised by consensus, citing the reservists’ protests and the resulting risks to Israel’s military capability.
Signatories to the letter were three former military leaders; five former heads of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency; three former directors of the Shin Bet, the internal security agency; and four former police commissioners.
To add to the uncertainty on Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu was taken to hospital to have a pacemaker implanted during a procedure that would see him placed under anesthesia, his office said.
Negotiations to reach an 11-hour compromise over the court dispute are still ongoing and may result in the plan being watered down or delayed. But for now, lawmakers are expected to hold a binding vote on the law in parliament on Monday, where the ruling coalition has a four-seat majority.
The law would prevent the court from overruling the national government using the legal standard of “reasonableness,” a concept judges have previously used to block ministerial appointments and challenge planning decisions, among other government actions.
The government and its supporters say the new legislation will improve democracy by restoring the balance of power between elected lawmakers and unelected judges, and giving lawmakers more freedom to implement policies chosen by the majority of voters at the ballot box.
“The proper balance between the authorities has been upset in recent decades,” Netanyahu said in a speech on Thursday. “This balance must be restored so that the democratic choice of the people can be expressed through the government elected by the people.”
The court can still use other legal standards to oppose government decisions.
But large parts of the country, including Saturday’s protesters, say the legislation undermines democracy because it removes a key check on the government’s overreach. They say this could allow the government – the most ultra-nationalist and ultra-conservative in Israeli history – to build a much less pluralistic society.
“We are marching because, to cut a long story short, the government is trying to turn us into a dictatorship,” said 31-year-old Navot Silberstein shortly after reaching the top of the steep hills west of Jerusalem on Friday night.
“We don’t want to live in a country where the government has too much power over us,” added Mr. Silberstein, his shirt drenched in sweat after hours of walking in the sun.
This disagreement is part of a much wider and long-standing social dispute about the nature and future of Israeli society. The ruling coalition and its constituencies generally have a more religious and conservative outlook and see the court as an obstacle to that goal. The opposition tends towards a more secular and diverse view and sees the court as a standard bearer for its cause.
Some protesters fear the legislation will make it easier for the government to enforce ultra-Orthodox Jewish practices in public life, such as closing shops on the Sabbath or enforcing gender segregation in public spaces. Others fear the law would make it easier for government leaders to get away with corruption, or for Mr Netanyahu, currently on trial for bribery and fraud, to avoid punishment, a claim he strongly denies.
“The fear is that our country will not look like it does today,” Ms Holzman said of the judicial review plan.
Similar mass protests in March led the government to suspend, at least for now, other planned judicial changes. One of the suspended plans would have allowed Parliament to overturn the court’s decisions; another would have given the government more say over who becomes a Supreme Court justice.