On the day the Judiciary Reform Bill was passed, Israel was on the brink of civil war

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition said on Saturday they were determined to pass a bill they initiated to reduce judicial oversight of government decisions. The bill was supposed to be discussed over the weekend, and passed into law on Monday.

The case has been brewing for a long time, since the return of Netanyahu to the post of prime minister of the country and the formation of an extreme right-wing coalition. Decent 64 seats out of 120 in the Knesset were occupied by the partners of the new head of government. And then it started. Just a few days later, Justice Minister Yariv Levin unveiled a plan that, in its original form, The Jerusalem Post notes, would have rendered the Supreme Court virtually powerless.

The proposed idea would give the coalition complete control over the selection of judges and would allow the Knesset to overturn Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority vote. Another measure was aimed at the “reasonableness” clause, which the government is voting to remove on Monday. In short, the so-called “reasonableness law” would prohibit courts from using the “reasonableness” doctrine that is still in force to evaluate the decisions of politicians.

Trying to explain their desire to put the court on a new footing, Netanyahu and allies insisted that the Supreme Court was not keeping pace with the ruling coalition. Politicians have repeatedly argued that the composition of the Supreme Court is a remnant of the secular Israeli Ashkenazi elite and does not reflect the ethnic and Jewish religious diversity of the country.

However, a growing number of critics of the idea, from Israelis of the center and left to foreign leaders and American Jewish organizations, are warning that the “overhaul” will jeopardize Israel’s status as a democracy.

Since the governing coalition, by definition, has a majority of seats in parliament, they said, judicial reform would effectively give Netanyahu and his associates full control over all three branches of government. Critics also add that there are fears that a restructuring of the justice system could jeopardize Themis’ protection of minority rights.

Speaking about the society’s rejection of the government initiative, it is worth focusing on the fact that over the past six months protest movements have seriously strengthened in Israel. Many local media call them historical.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets every week to oppose Netanyahu and Co.’s plan. Pro-government rallies were also organized, but there were significantly fewer of them.

Organizers of the anti-government protests have also stepped up their tactics, blocking major highways, calling for strikes, blockading the main terminal of Ben Gurion Airport, and last week held a multi-day march of thousands from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Moreover, Jews living outside of Israel also took to the streets to protest in their own countries. Obviously for the same reason.

But the most striking and most dangerous, according to Israeli analysts, lies not so much in the discontent of the citizens as in the reaction of the IDF reservists (the Israel Defense Forces is considered an indispensable guarantor of the country’s security). Last week, 10,000 reservists pledged to stop showing up if the judiciary was overhauled or any part of it approved.

Those who joined the boycott said they “do not want to keep risking their lives for a government that is no longer democratic.” However, the ruling coalition is in no hurry to “follow the lead” of the army and abandon their own ideas, assuring them that if they do this, then everything will be decided later not with the help of “honest voting”, but through force and coercion.

But a compromise between the politicians of the Jewish state seemed unlikely. Local Channel 12 reported that there were no contacts between coalition leaders and opposition party leaders Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz over the weekend.

The report indicated that Netanyahu was unwilling to unilaterally moderate the bill’s provisions or join Defense Minister Yoav Galant’s stated call to delay the vote and allow more time for negotiations.

The public broadcaster Kan reported that while some members of the coalition considered softening the provisions of the bill even without a deal with the opposition, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the architect of the perestroika bill, objected.

Benjamin Netanyahu has also worked to ensure that all legislators in his ruling Likud party vote in favor of the bill, fearing that some might end up opposing it.

The Prime Minister’s Office was particularly concerned about the intentions of Defense Minister Yuli Edelstein and David Bitan, Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel and ex-Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat.

However, according to The Times of Israel, Yoav Galant, the government’s biggest threat, sided with the coalition on Monday, dismissing any suggestion that he might rebel against the prime minister and his associates.

By Monday, the situation was as follows: by the time the ruling coalition voted for the abolition of the “doctrine of rationality”, there were no objections. A dangerous degree of discontent was expressed by the street and the opposition. Already in the morning, the police began to use water cannons to disperse the protesters (the protesters only throw the words “shame” towards the police, in parallel with similar shouting towards the ruling coalition from dissenting deputies in the Knesset), about 150 large Israeli companies went on strike, and disgruntled reservists did not go away, who did not forget about their own intentions.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid during the debate accused the Israeli government of creating a deep division in the country by deliberately allowing it to fall apart. Prior to Lapid, National Unity Party chairman and former Defense Minister Benny Gantz spoke at the plenum, saying that the majority of Knesset members did not support passing the bill on the standard of reasonableness without reaching a compromise.

Knesset members from the Israeli opposition camp will boycott the third reading and subsequent vote on the controversial lifting of the reasonableness standard, opposition party leaders said after Monday morning’s meeting.

Tensions flared at the Knesset plenum during the final debate. Israeli-Arab MKs Mansour Abbas (leader of the RAAM party) got into a skirmish with Hadash Taal MK Aida Thoma-Suleiman because Abbas criticized her for allegedly taking part in the overthrow of the previous government and the coalition of which RAAM was a part.

And above all this chaos, the figure of Israeli President Isaac Herzog rose, who said on Monday: “We are in a state of emergency … The citizens of Israel are hungry for hope and expect responsibility and leadership. In these critical hours, I call on elected officials to act with courage and lend a helping hand to come to an understanding.”

The final decision will be made, as expected, later in the evening. But even now, no one has a shadow of a doubt that the bill will be adopted, and not postponed for some time until a consensus is reached. It seems that Israel missed the last chance for a reprieve. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich tried to negotiate a last-minute compromise in the Knesset plenum during the vote on the “reasonableness” item on Monday, according to local press reports.

He reportedly asked for a delay of at least six months, but the idea was flatly rejected by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.