Biggest protests in Israeli history haven’t swayed Netanyahu’s government

In Israel, on March 11, the largest protests in history were held across the country, caused by the decision of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to reform the judiciary. According to the newspaper Haaretz, citing the organizers of the demonstrations, almost 500,000 people took part in the action (out of a population of about 9.5 million people). Law enforcement officials estimated that 50,000 people protested in Haifa, 9,000 in Ranaan and 8,000 in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, considered a stronghold of the ruling Likud party. In the Israeli capital Tel Aviv, about 250,000 people took to the streets.

Protests against judicial reform, which was developed by the ruling coalition of right-wing parties led by Likud and Netanyahu, have been going on in Israel for the tenth week. As conceived by the authors of the reform, the Times of Israel writes, the government should gain full control over the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court, and he himself will lose the right to review the country’s basic laws. All this, the Israeli edition notes, is part of the ruling coalition’s strategy to curtail the possibilities of the judiciary and concentrate real powers in the hands of the government. According to Netanyahu, the reform is designed to balance the branches of government. At the same time, his opponents accuse the prime minister of encroaching on the democratic foundations of the state.