For 20th consecutive week, demonstrations against Netanyahu government renewed

Demonstrations against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and its plan to weaken the judiciary were renewed today, Saturday evening, for the twentieth week in a row.

Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in a central protest that started from “Kaplan” Street in the center of Tel Aviv, all the way to “Dizengoff” Street.

A number of participants in the demonstration raised the Palestinian flag and a picture of the martyred journalist, Sherine Abu Aqelah, in conjunction with the one-year anniversary of her martyrdom by Israeli occupation bullets in Jenin.

The marchers also raised banners with slogans written in Hebrew, English and Arabic, including: “Palestinian lives matter,” “A people occupying another people cannot be free,” and “No democracy with occupation,” “Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben Gvir, A threat to peace in the world”, “Yariv Levin is an enemy of democracy”, “It is time to bring down the dictator” and “the government of shame”, “Bibi (Netanyahu) is incapacitated”, “Apartheid does not stop at the Green Line”, and “No Nobody is Above the Law”, and “Levin’s Judicial Reforms are the End of Democracy”.

Thousands demonstrated at the “Horef” junction in Haifa, and at the “Karkur” junction near Hadera. A protest was organized against the plan to weaken the judiciary for the first time in Ramle, and similar demonstrations were organized in several cities, towns and crossroads.

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.”

Since the plan was announced in early January, tens of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated weekly to denounce the text and the government that Netanyahu formed in December. On March 27, the latter announced the “suspension” of the plan to give an “opportunity for dialogue”, after the intensification of the protest, the start of a general strike, and the emergence of tensions within the ruling coalition. However, the organizers of the protest demonstrations saw in this announcement an attempt by the government to contain the protests, and demanded the plan’s complete cancellation.