Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial reform plan sparks protests

• Netanyahu’s judicial reform plan has sparked protests.
• And calls for civil war.
• But US President Joe Biden has expressed concerns over the reforms.

As the administration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu introduced a contentious judicial reform plan on Monday, demonstrators shut down streets in cities all throughout Israel.

Israeli flags, which the event’s organizers were handing out before it started, were turned into a sea of Israeli flags by protesters in Jerusalem’s streets surrounding the Supreme Court and Knesset.

A few dozen ladies in long red costumes and white head scarves, resembling the handmaids in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” as well as drummers, trumpet blowers, and at least one juggler balancing an Israeli flagpole on his nose were among the protestors.

The crowd at the march in Jerusalem was obviously fewer than it had been a week earlier, yet it still seemed to number in the tens of thousands.

After weeks of protests and requests from Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and the United States to delay the law and engage in negotiations, the judicial makeover bill is scheduled for the first of its three readings in parliament, the Knesset, on Monday.

The Israeli judicial system is in need of the broadest reform since the nation’s inception, according to Netanyahu’s coalition.

The most significant modifications would enable the Knesset to reverse Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority.

In addition, the reforms aim to do away with the independent legal advisers that serve government ministries and the judges’ selection process.

US President Joe Biden has expressed concerns over the reforms, saying: “The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, on an independent judiciary.

Building consensus for fundamental changes is really important to ensure that the people buy into them so they can be sustained.”

Netanyahu backed the judicial overhaul on Sunday.

“Israel is a democracy and will remain a democracy, with majority rule and proper safeguards of civil liberties,” he said during an address to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

“All democracies should respect the will of other free peoples, just as we respect their democratic decisions.

“There’s been a lot of rhetoric that is frankly reckless and dangerous, including calls for bloodshed in the streets and calls for a civil war. It isn’t going to happen.

There’s not going to be a civil war,” the Prime Minister added.

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