Israel’s year of chaos neared a crescendo Sunday as thousands of military pilots and soldiers threatened not to report for volunteer duty if the far-right government refuses to back down from a planned vote on limiting the power of the Supreme Court.
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Tens of thousands of citizens filled the streets, some spending their sixth night outdoors, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushed to the hospital for an emergency cardiac procedure.
The 73-year-old premier was still hospitalized late Sunday after a pacemaker was successfully implanted, according to his physicians, adding to the tension and uncertainty of the unprecedented domestic crisis that has racked the country since January.
The fight over the government’s bid to overhaul the judiciary — which, according to the original plans, included curbing the top court’s oversight powers and granting coalition lawmakers more authority to appoint judges — sparked a mass backlash immediately after it was proposed by the new-far right government when it took power with a four-seat parliamentary majority.
The proposal has drawn weekly mass protests across the country, as well as searing criticism from its top security officials. Opponents of the bill say it will undo Israel’s fragile democracy and skew the balance of power in a country that has no constitution. The Supreme Court is widely seen as one of the few institutions able to rein in the power of the governing majority, uphold civil rights and enforce the rule of law.
In Jerusalem, thousands of demonstrators camped outside the Knesset building as parliamentarians slogged through hours of formal debate ahead of Monday’s scheduled vote. Thousands more protesters linked arms to form a human chain stretching more than a mile from the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City to the Knesset, calling on lawmakers to halt the bill’s passage until a consensus is reached.
David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Donald Trump, and usually an unreserved supporter of the Israeli government, made a historical connection to ancient Jerusalem when he lambasted the judicial reform bill in a tweet Sunday, comparing it to the infamous destruction of the Jewish Second Temple by the Romans: “Very bad timing.”
Netanyahu defiant as vote to limit Israel courts looms amid rising protests
But Netanyahu, recovering from the medical procedure, remained defiant. “We are continuing efforts to complete the legislation,” he said in a video statement broadcast Sunday afternoon.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin, a key proponent of the bill, was appointed as Netanyahu’s stand-in while he was under sedation. Another key backer of the legislation, Simcha Rothman, told the Knesset on Sunday that the bill will “make Israel democratic again.”
The far-right government and its supporters say the overhaul will give conservative lawmakers greater freedom to implement policy — including more benefits for Israel’s ultra-Orthodox minority and a de facto annexation of the West Bank, the land that Palestinians envision as part of their future state.
In Tel Aviv, thousands of pro-government marchers gathered in a counterprotest Sunday, attempting to block a major highway. Transportation Minister Miri Regev, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, told the gathering that any reservist who refuses to report to duty “belongs in jail,” according to Israeli media.
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