Protesters blocked highways and gathered outside Tel Aviv's stock exchange and military headquarters on Tuesday in the latest countrywide demonstration against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned judicial overhaul just days before a key part of the reform is passed.
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The latest "Day of Disruption" came as longtime allies of the prime minister pushed a contentious piece of legislation through a parliamentary committee ahead of a vote expected next week. That vote, in which the government is all but assured a majority, will enact a controversial bill that would prohibit judges from striking down decisions made by senior elected officials on grounds that they are no reasonable or over-the-top, which some say could lead to corruption and abuse of power. Judges used that "reasonability clause" to annul the appointment of a Netanyahu ally, Shas leader Aryeh Deri, as interior minister after accepting a plea deal for tax evasion in 2021.
Video: Judicial reform demonstrators stage a sit-in near the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv / Moshe Ben-Simhon
Demonstrators, many of them military reservists, created human chains and blocked one of the entrances to the Kirya, Israel's military headquarters in central Tel Aviv. Outside the Tel Aviv stock exchange, demonstrators ignited smoke bombs, drummed and chanted, and held up signs reading "save our Start-Up Nation" and "dictatorship will kill the economy."
Others demonstrated outside the headquarters of the Histadrut, Israel's largest labor union, demanding the organization calls for a general strike – a move that could paralyze the country's economy. Protesters scaled scaffolding outside the building and hoisted reservist protest flags. The labor union had called a strike in March, a move that contributed to Netanyahu freezing the judicial overhaul.
Itai Bar Natan, 48, CFO of an Israeli start-up, said he was angry enough to climb the scaffolding and wave the flag that read "Brothers in Arms," a slogan used by military reservists protesting against the judicial overhaul.
"This government is totally insane. We are afraid for our democracy, for everything we've built – that's why we are all here fighting," Natan said.
Police said officers had arrested at least 19 people suspected of public disturbance during protests blocking highways in central Israel. In one incident a protesters was hit by a car in what the police believe is an accident, despite heightened tensions in the preceding days between the supporters and detractors of the reform, with the latter group vowing to stage counter-protests. The protester, a woman in her early 40s, was rushed to the hospital in an induced coma and with oxygen support.
Netanyahu's government proposed a series of drastic changes to the country's judiciary shortly after taking office in December. His government took office in the aftermath of the country's fifth elections in under four years, all of them regarded as referendums on his fitness to serve as prime minister while on trial for corruption.
Video: Protesters arrive at the Tel Aviv Rabbinate to protest judicial bills / Yoni Rikner
The weekly mass protests led Netanyahu to suspend the overhaul in March but he decided to revive the plan last month after compromise talks with the political opposition collapsed.
The proposed laws would grant lawmakers greater control over the appointment of judges and give parliament the power to overturn high court decisions and pass laws impervious to judicial review.
Tuesday's protests came as Israel's figurehead president, Isaac Herzog, was visiting Washington and set to meet with President Joe Biden. Herzog's visit comes a day after Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone and invited him to meet in the US this fall, despite expressing concern about the controversial plans to overhaul Israel's judiciary.
He and his allies say the measures are necessary to curb an over-activist Supreme Court comprised of unelected judges. Critics say the judicial overhaul will concentrate power in the hands of Netanyahu and his allies and undermine the country's system of checks and balances.
They also say Netanyahu has a conflict of interest because he is on trial for charges of fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes.
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