Doctors held a two-hour strike Wednesday to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to overhaul the country's judiciary ahead of the passage of a key part of the plan. The doctors say the bill currently on the Knesset docket, which will prevent judges from striking down government decisions on grounds that they are unreasonable, will endanger public health by granting Netanyahu and his allies greater control over the country's health care system.
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Wearing scrubs and holding signs saying, "We are the wall shielding democracy," doctors gathered outside Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. Medical leaders warned they will take more severe measures if Netanyahu's government – the most right-wing in Israel's 75-year history – moves forward with a bill to limit the judiciary's oversight powers which could become law as soon as next week.
In a letter to Netanyahu on Tuesday, Dr. Zion Hagay, chairman of Israel's Medical Association, said the bill would lessen the judiciary's ability to strike down inappropriate appointments to the health care system.
"As someone who once served as health minister, you are undoubtedly aware of the extensive professional powers held by the politicians within the health care system," he wrote in the letter. "These powers include the appointment of district psychiatrists, district doctors, and various other positions, as well as the authority to make significant decisions regarding infectious diseases, epidemics, clinic and hospital closures, service privatization, and more."
Video: Benny Gantz speaks on July 19, 2023 on judicial reform
The strike comes just days before the "reasonableness standard" bill, for which a final Knesset plenum vote is expected. Doctors say this bill, which is the first major legislation to reach an advanced stage since the judicial overhaul was introduced, would impose the whims of the government on medical professionals and possibly create catastrophic public health results for Israelis. State Party leader Gantz said on Wednesday that the Opposition would be willing to find common ground on a "reasonableness standard" bill if Netanyahu agrees to halt other parts of reform and return to reconciliation talks.
The set of bills comprising the judicial overhaul plan have triggered months of mass protests, including one on Tuesday, and warnings from key sectors of society, including business leaders and military reservists, that it will damage the country.
The doctors' strike Wednesday was the first by a workers' organization since Netanyahu announced last month that the overhaul would move forward. Weekly mass protests against the plan – including a strike by the country's national labor union – led Netanyahu to suspend the overhaul in March, but he revived the plan last month after compromise talks with the political opposition collapsed.
Emergency rooms were still open on Wednesday and oncology and fertility treatments remained available, said Dr. Hagai Levine, chairman of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians.
The Israel Medical Association will meet tomorrow to decide on further measures, Levine said. "If the government continues with the legislation, then the Israel Medical Association will take more severe steps, meaning a more severe strike," he said.
The overhaul consists of a series of measures that Netanyahu and his allies say are needed to rein in the powers of an unelected judiciary that they believe is overly interventionist in government decisions. But protesters representing a wide cross-section of Israeli society say the plan is a power grab by Netanyahu and his ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox allies that will destroy the country's fragile system of checks and balances.
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