Demonstrations against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and its plan to weaken the judiciary and the Supreme Court were renewed for the fifteenth week in a row, today.
Tens of thousands demonstrated in Tel Aviv and many intersections and towns against the Netanyahu government and the plan to weaken the judiciary and undermine the powers of the Supreme Court.
The police sent reinforced forces to Netanya to prevent violent incidents in the wake of the two counter-demonstrations.
Thousands demonstrated in Haifa and on Route 65 at the “Karkur” junction. A demonstration was also organized in front of the house of the Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, in Modi’in.
And the Israeli police announced the closure of many streets to traffic, coinciding with the protests.
Today’s protests came a day after Moody’s announced the reduction of Israel’s credit rating from “positive to stable” while keeping it at the level defined as “a1”, against a backdrop linked to the Netanyahu government’s plan to weaken the judiciary and undermine the Supreme Court.
This is the first time that Israel’s credit rating has decreased since the period that witnessed the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, as a year after the rating reached “positive”, the agency’s decision came to return it to “stable”.
The Netanyahu government seeks to make radical amendments to the legal and judicial systems, to almost completely eliminate the Supreme Court’s authority for judicial review, and to give the government an automatic majority in the judges’ selection committee, which a wide segment of Israelis sees as “targeting democracy and undermining the judicial system.”
Although Netanyahu announced the suspension of voting on the amendments in the Israeli “Knesset”, under the weight of the escalating protests in the Israeli street, the organizers of the protest demonstrations saw in this announcement an attempt by the government to contain the protests, and demanded the cancellation of the plan to completely weaken the judiciary.