Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night for the 21st consecutive week to protest Benjamin Netanyahu's government's plan to reform the judiciary. Protests are also taking place in other Israeli cities, such as Haifa (north) and Beersheba (south). Protesters have gathered weekly since January to both denounce the reform and scorn the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, indicted for corruption in a series of cases.
The latter announced on March 27 a "pause" in the project to give a "chance [...] dialogue", but the mobilization against reform remains strong. "We will continue our efforts to reach as broad an agreement as possible on judicial reform," Netanyahu said Wednesday, welcoming the passage of the 2023-2024 budget law by parliament. Police do not release official figures on the number of participants in the protests, but Israeli media have estimated that "tens of thousands" people will be taking part in Saturday's demonstration in Tel Aviv.
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Among them, Israel Alva, a tech entrepreneur, denounced a 2023-2024 budget as "outrageous" because "it grants benefits to certain sectors and does not take into account the general population." For him, it is important to protest against judicial reform, because "our DNA is democratic and liberal. We want a life of freedom, not to be told what to do."
Yael Ben Shalom, a student at Tel Aviv University, is protesting "because people are trying to take control of our system and turn it into something bad" and "ruin the future of the country," she said. For the government, one of the most right-wing in Israel's history, the reform of the judicial system aims, among other things, to rebalance powers by reducing the prerogatives of the Supreme Court, which the executive considers politicized, in favor of parliament. Critics of the reform, on the contrary, believe that it risks paving the way for an illiberal or authoritarian drift.