Published: 14 February 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Government presses on despite general strike, mass protests, US concern, and unprecedented intervention by a worried Head of State.
Israel’s constitutional and social crisis has reached fever pitch over the past two days with an unprecedented general strike and the intervention of the usually apolitical President.
In a surprise address on Sunday night, President Isaac Herzog expressed his concern about deep rifts in Israeli society caused by the government’s plan to overhaul the judiciary and presented a compromise plan for Israel’s balance of powers.
Only one in four Israelis supports the government’s plan to go ahead with judicial override, according to a survey aired this week.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin rejected Herzog's call for a delay and the Committe charged with implementing the controversial laws went ahead with dramatic argument on Monday.
"I feel – we all feel – that we are moments from a crash, perhaps even a violent one"
President Isaac Herzog
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is technically barred from commenting, because his current case for corruption creates a conflict of interest - although he violated his conflict-of-interest agreement by meeting with Levin on the subject on Sunday night.
More than 80,000 people joined the protests against the government's planned judicial overhaul outside the Knesset in Jerusalem on Monday as Israel came to a halt with a general strike.
US President Joe Biden also weighed in publicly for the first time Saturday on the plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to dramatically weaken Israel’s judiciary.
In a statement to The New York Times, Biden said, “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."
