Over the weekend in Israel, tens of thousands of people protested again against the new government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the most right-wing in Israel’s history: the protests took place in several cities, for the ninth straight week since the election of Netanyahu in early January. The demonstrations, among the largest organized in recent years, mainly concern the reform of the judicial system proposed by the new Netanyahu government, which removes the powers of control from the Supreme Court to entrust them to the government.
In Israel, the Supreme Court plays an exceptionally important role in the political life of the country, which has no constitution (although it does have a set of basic laws that enshrine individual rights and the relationship between citizens and the state) and has relatively few counterweights to the power of the incumbent government. The demonstrators are protesting precisely because they believe that the reform proposed by Netanyanu is a danger to Israeli democracy.
The protests this weekend were overall peacefulalthough news has come from Tel Aviv, where one of the largest protests so far has taken place, and video of even violent clashes between demonstrators and the police. The intensity of the protests against Netanyahu has increased in recent days, reaching a climax last Wednesday, when the police fired stun grenades at protesters and there were violent clashes.
– Read also: Judicial reform in Israel, explained
Also over the weekend there were clashes between police and Israeli demonstrators also in Hawara, a Palestinian city about 6 kilometers south of Nablus which had been attacked by dozens of Israeli settlers earlier this week. On Friday, a group of Israeli demonstrators organized a demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinians: the Israeli army responded by shooting stun grenades and tear gas. In some cases, the Associated Press wrote, protesters were pinned to the ground with officers’ knees pressed into their necks and backs, or kicked.
