Some leading high-tech firms will hold a warning strike lasting several hours on Tuesday in protest of the reforms to the judicial system proposed by a minister in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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The list of companies planning to join the measure numbers over 130 entities and includes such internationally renowned brands as Wiz, INX, Cheq, Natural Intelligence, and Luminescent.
In January, representatives of Israel's thriving tech sector addressed an open letter to Netanyahu, saying that "making common cause with extremists" such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich could severely hamper Israel's standing as a tech hub.
Earlier this month Yariv Levin, justice minister in Netanyahu's right-wing government, announced a plan to hand more powers to lawmakers in appointing judges and overriding Supreme Court decisions.
Critics say Levin's reforms would cripple judicial independence, set back minority rights and compromise the credibility of the court system. Among those opposed are the Supreme Court chief justice and the country's attorney-general, while critics of the Supreme Court say it is overreaching and unrepresentative of the electorate. "The dictatorial coup will severely damage civil rights, the Israeli economy, and all avenues of life," the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, the nonprofit helping coordinate popular protest against the reform, said in a statement.
"Therefore, it is incumbent on us to take drastic measures. The economic damage notwithstanding, we are taking this step as a first step to say loud and clear to the Israeli government that the coup d'état will not go through. The state of Israel will not become a dictatorship because it will not function a single day without the central arteries of the Israeli economy and society."
On Saturday, an estimated 110,000 Israelis turned out to dual rallies in Tel Aviv to protest a proposed reform to the justice system, the third such event in the coastal city in as many weeks. Thousands more rallied in Haifa, Jerusalem, and Beersheba.
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
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