Crowds gathered again in Israeli cities last night to protest against the government’s planned change to the country’s legal system. Organizers of the protest in Tel Aviv said that analysis of camera images indicated that there were about 135,000 participants. According to a report on Channel 13 News, Crowd Solutions founder and CEO Ofer Grinboim Liron put the number in Tel Aviv at 133,000, and in the tens of thousands at other focal points of the protest.
Thousands of people participated in a demonstration in Jerusalem mounted by right-wing organizations calling for compromise over the legislation being promoted by Minister of Justice Yariv Levin of the Likud party. Former minister of communications Yoaz Hendel, who initiated the demonstration, said, "I don’t care whose fault it is. I care that the country I love so much, the State of Israel, could fall apart. Legal reform, which I certainly see as necessary, is worth nothing if there is no State of Israel. We must defend Israeli democracy just as we defend the Land of Israel, and defend the integrity of the nation just as we defend the integrity of the country."
Among other speakers at the demonstration was Yoram Cohen, who served as director of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) in Benjamin Netanyahu’s previous government. "The aim of the reform is not to improve the legal system, but to neutralize it. If the reform passes as it stands, it will turn the country from a democracy to one that is not a democracy."
One of the speakers at the Tel Aviv rally was Alon Cohen, founder and former CEO and chairperson of CyberArk Software, one of Israel’s largest technology companies. Referring to a speech by Likud minister David Amsalem in the Knesset in which he referred to opponents of the judicial reform legislation as a Rolex-wearing privileged few (while as it happens himself sporting a Cartier watch), Cohen said, "I grew up in the Baka neighborhood in Jerusalem, a tough neighborhood with many immigrants from North Africa. I was orphaned at age 10. I didn’t have a Rolex and I didn’t have a Mercedes, but I had faith in myself and in the State of Israel, in a pluralistic and progressive Israel, an Israel with a social conscience, fair and democratic.
"I see my life’s work, Israel’s technology industry, in great danger. If, Heaven forbid, they succeed in passing this regime change and trampling democracy, this glorious Israeli engine built over thirty years is liable to become derailed very quickly. Investors seek stability. No major investor will invest his money in a dictatorial regime. Foreign money that is already here will flee to more stable places."
Speaking at a demonstration in Netanya, Leader of the Opposition Yair Lapid said, "One day, our children will ask us where we were in the winter of 2023, and we’ll tell them that we were here. It isn’t going to be easy, it isn’t going to be simple, but anyone who knows the history of the State of Israel, knows one thing: there is nothing that can stand in the way of a determined group of people prepared to fight for what it believes in."
Despite the call for compromise talks by President Isaac Herzog, and postponement of the vote on the latest bill designed to enable Shas leader Aryeh Deri to serve as a government minister, the coalition continues to advance the judicial reform legislation via the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. Tomorrow, bills changing the composition of the judicial selection committee and prohibiting the Supreme Court (sitting as the High Court of Justice) from striking laws designated as basic laws are due to be brought before the Knesset plenum for first reading.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on February 19, 2023.
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