Israeli lawmakers on Monday approved part of a proposed judicial overhaul that would limit the Supreme Court’s power to check government action, a key priority of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government.
The vote took place as protests raged outside the Israeli Knesset and across the country. Polling has shown that a majority of Israelis oppose the sweeping overhaul, which has sparked mass outrage across Israel in recent months.
The bill approved Monday would prevent the Supreme Court from blocking government actions that the body deems “unreasonable.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that “Netanyahu’s entire coalition of 64 lawmakers voted in favor of the legislation, after efforts to reach a compromise collapsed.”
“The opposition lawmakers in the 120-seat parliament, known as the Knesset, walked out of the room,” the Journal added.
According to Haaretz, the corruption watchdog Movement for Government Quality “appealed to the Supreme Court against the law to abolish the reasonableness standard shortly after it was approved in the Knesset on its third reading.”
The group said the newly passed measure is “illegal as it significantly alters the nature of governance in the country and undermines the separation of powers,” Haaretz reported. “The movement also added that serious flaws in the legislative process were found, including the lack of involvement of Knesset members in the legislation and the absence of adequate and comprehensive factual and legal foundation.”
Earlier:
Protesters chained themselves to fences and blocked the entrance to the Knesset on Monday as Israeli lawmakers prepared to vote on legislation that would overhaul the nation’s judiciary, limiting the power of the Supreme Court to strike down laws — a move seen as a power grab by far-right forces led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The push for the bill has been the catalyst for months of intense protests across Israel, with demonstrators taking to the streets by the hundreds of thousands, workers walking off the job, and businesses shutting their doors to express outrage over what opponents of the overhaul have described as a “judicial coup.”
A vote on a section of the legislation is expected Monday as prominent figures, including Israeli President Isaac Herzog, continued to call for a compromise measure that Netanyahu’s Likud party has thus far rejected.
“This is a national emergency,” Herzog said Monday. “It’s time for responsibility.”
Histadrut, Israel’s largest labor federation, has indicated that it will call a nationwide strike if the proposal isn’t weakened — though leaders of the protests against the judicial overhaul have said they’ll accept nothing less than a complete halt to the legislation. A general strike led by Histadrut in March grounded much of the country to a halt.
While the Israeli Supreme Court has been an extremely weak check on the government’s systematic oppression of Palestinians and illegal land confiscations, the proposed judicial overhaul could completely eliminate any remaining barriers to far-right efforts to dramatically expand settlements and further roll back Palestinians’ rights.
Monday’s vote will come amid international outrage over mounting violence by settlers and Israeli forces in the West Bank, where Israel recently launched its largest attack in two decades.
Israel doesn’t have a formal constitution, so the nation’s high court uses the subjective legal standard of “reasonableness” to assess whether a law should stand. The Netanyahu government’s proposed judicial overhaul would restrict the Supreme Court’s use of “reasonableness” in striking down laws, appointments, and other actions.
As The New York Times reported last week, “Opponents of the government’s proposal view the legal concept of reasonableness as a crucial protection against government overreach, and a key pillar of Israeli democracy.”
“In particular,” the Times added, “they fear that the current government — an alliance of ultraconservatives and ultranationalists — might use reduced judicial oversight to help mold a more religious and less pluralist society, principally by awarding jobs and funds to pet projects and allies, and firing officials who oppose them.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy