Photo courtesy of Beny Shlevich via Wikimedia Commons.
Israeli citizens have been protesting for months following the announcement of a judicial reform that would place limits on the courts’ current power.
By Shira Sadeh ’25
Global Editor
On March 27, 2023, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he will be delaying the proposed judicial reforms that were announced earlier this year. According to an Al Jazeera news article, this announcement followed a mass strike of workers across the country, as well as protests from tens of thousands of Israelis opposed to the reforms. Malls and kindergartens were closed, seaport workers refused to work and flights were suspended at Ben Gurion International Airport. Al Jazeera also explained that the delay announced last Monday means that the proposed changes will not be voted on by parliament until late April at the earliest.
According to a Foreign Policy article, the controversy began on Jan. 4, 2023, when Justice Minister Yariv Levin announced the first phase of the planned judicial reform only days after Netanyahu’s administration was sworn into office. The new measures would prevent the High Court from blocking legislation by creating a nearly impossible standard for doing so and give the ruling coalition the ability to appoint judges. Additionally, should the standards be met for voiding legislation, the Knesset — Israel’s legislature — will be given the power to override the Court’s decision with a 61-vote majority.
These changes were only the first in a series of planned reforms. Other proposed changes include transforming legal advisors into political appointees and giving these positions less sway over politicians’ actions, Foreign Policy explained.
Netanyahu’s coalition, the most conservative, right-wing coalition in Israel’s history, believes that the Court has been granted too much authority in recent years, allowing it to act against the ultra-Orthodox and nationalist policies supported by the right-wing government, an NPR article explained. According to The New York Times, the prime minister is also currently facing three corruption charges for which he was indicted in 2019. NPR explained that it is possible that the High Court could eventually hear these cases.
Despite Netanyahu’s announcement that he will delay the reforms, protesters continued to gather in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. An analysis by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz explained that this is because many Israelis have lost confidence in the prime minister. According to Haaretz, this is largely due to Netanyahu’s decision to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for opposing the overhaul, along with his decision to reward a national guard — considered to be a publicly-funded private militia — to Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister of national security.
Aseel Rmah ’25, an Arab-Palestinian citizen of Israel, explained in a recent interview with Mount Holyoke News that, although she believes that the protests are largely in response to the judicial overhaul, there are also other issues underlying the civil unrest. “Israel has been going through a political crisis since 2018, and has the highest inflation … since 2008,” she explained.
The political crisis Rmah referred to describes the frequent elections in Israel that have been held since 2019. According to Reuters, this began when the Netanyahu-led government dissolved in late 2018, leading to two more elections in April and September of 2019, both of which failed to produce a coalition government. Reuters explained that in the March 2020 election, Netanyahu and Benjamin Gantz formed an alliance to create a government, which once again quickly collapsed. Centrist Yair Lapid won the next election in March 2021 and was able to form a government that put an end to Netanyahu's 12-year consecutive rule. Lapid’s government collapsed less than a year later, however, leading to another election in November 2022, when Netanyahu returned to power.
When asked if she thinks that these protests will cause long-term change, Rmah stated that she does not think that they will. “We have never seen a long-term change after any protest that happened in Israel. People seem to forget and adapt after a while until the same thing happens again. We have never seen any major change in Israel’s policies,” she said.
According to a Foreign Policy analysis, this event has caused a powerful, grassroots populist movement to emerge. Although it is unclear whether the demonstrators will be able to sustain their momentum, they have already proven capable of exerting influence over politicians.
Leftists and other critics of the Israeli government have noted that the pro-democracy protests have not explicitly included a demand for equal rights for Palestinians. This has been a strategic move by the demonstrators, who currently prefer to maintain relations with their more conservative participants. Foreign Affairs noted that this may not continue to be the case, however. Some demonstrators’ signs read “democracy for all,” and there remains strong opposition to the national guard given to Ben-Gvir — two indicators that there remains a possibility of including Palestinians’ demands in the future.