The Fracture of Israel

Israel has had to look at the civil confrontations for Benjamin Netanyahu to have decided to correct his project of mortally weakening the independence of the judiciary and de facto bringing Israeli democracy closer to an illiberal regime in a very partial way.

Only late on Monday, with hundreds of thousands of citizens demonstrating in the streets, Israel paralyzed and the call of far-right sectors to physically confront those who protested against the Government, the prime minister announced in a speech to the country that he was freezing the project of reform of the judiciary to avoid “a civil war”.

The prime minister of the most ultra-right-wing and ultra-nationalist government in the country's history has systematically turned a deaf ear to the wave of popular protests and to the well-founded criticism that warned of the irreversible change that subjugating the judicial power to political power would mean, thus ending the division of powers .

On Sunday he dismissed his own defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who the day before had publicly called for the reform to be halted, warning that the situation created endangered the very security of the country.

That was the spark that blew up the situation and shouting “shame”, tens of thousands of people spontaneously took to the streets in a climate of growing tension.

President Isaac Herzog reiterated his request for immediate withdrawal from the project and demanded "responsibility" from the prime minister.

The result was that on Monday Israel experienced one of the most turbulent days in its political history.

Those who protested in the streets continued to gain followers and the call for the mobilization of the most reactionary sectors of the Israeli political spectrum against their own compatriots put on the horizon the real possibility of reaching a point of no return.

And there Netanyahu did appear to talk about "national responsibility" and open a pause for an "authentic dialogue."

But you should not be fooled.

The current Israeli prime minister has not backed down;

he has limited himself to buying time until the end of April to rebuild ranks in his government coalition and try to reduce the opposition on the street.

In this plan, he does not play a minor role in solving his personal judicial problems due to corruption and abuse of power.

It would be naive to think that Netanyahu has suddenly understood that he also governs for the other half of Israel, who has shown that democratic principles are non-negotiable and today his project is the greatest danger facing democracy in Israel.