Published: 26 May 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
COLIN SHINDLER argues the current demonstrations in Israel are about far more than judicial overhaul.
The demonstrations every Saturday night against “the judicial overhaul” continue in Israel unabated and remain deeply defiant. Even the hiatus of a rocket barrage from Gaza by Islamic Jihad did not mean an abandonment of protest. Unlike in Türkiye and Hungary, many Israelis are not prepared to roll over and whisper their thoughts in private.
To unsettle Likud MKs even further, Moody's rating agency has lowered its credit rating while Benjamin Netanyahu's long-time supporter in the US, the multi-billionaire Miriam Adelson commented that his attempt to tether an independent judiciary to a post was “a hasty injudicious and irresponsible move”. According to a series of polls, Likud has lost at least 10 seats to Benny Gantz's party — and if an election was held tomorrow Netanyahu would not be able to cobble together a working coalition.
The fissures in Israeli society go deep but now are spreading wider to reflect grievances which go beyond tinkering with the rule of law. The judicial overhaul is, of course, symptomatic of Netanyahu's mindset, but many now talk about the refusal of the Haredim to serve in the IDF amidst millions of shekels showered down on them by government.
The economic inequality between rich and poor is also becoming more apparent in an Israel which is growing increasingly expensive for the ordinary Israeli citizen but even for well-to-do tourists. Even Likud voters now describe the judicial overhaul as a coup and not a reform.
Today's divisions were eloquently described by former president Reuven Rivlin in a speech to the Herzliya Conference in 2015. He argued that Israel now consists of four tribes: the secularists, the national religious, the haredim and the Arabs. With the demise of Ben-Gurion's Israel, he said there are now rival visions of an Israel in the 21st century.
It is this moral cowardice which has annoyed the hundreds of thousands of Israelis from all walks of life who have taken to the streets in protest. In one sense, this is beyond politics.
The demonstrations every week reflect the struggle between these tribes now competing for dominance in Israel. Those opposed to Netanyahu's attempt to rewrite the national narrative, such as Ha'aretz columnist Uri Misgav, compared the Prime Minister and his coalition supporters to “burglars breaking into the family home and setting it ablaze”. Misgav's article was acerbically titled No Compromise and No Dialogue: War.
