With a plan evidently under consideration in Israel that if enacted would allow the national legislature to overrule decisions of that country’s Supreme Court with a simple majority vote, huge numbers of Israelis are voicing their opposition. On Monday, that total passed 100,000, according to police, who were estimating the size of a crowd gathered in close proximity to the legislative building.
According to Axios, organizers of the demonstrations provided a higher estimate of turnout, saying it approached 250,000. Either way, it’s a substantial showing. The entire population of Israel is evidently close to the population of the U.S. state of New Jersey. Rounding up to nine and a half million as an estimate for the Israeli population, a quarter of a million protesters showing up would equal over two and a half percent of the entire country! Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, back at the helm of Israel’s government, has a history of alignment with Donald Trump, who himself — in theory — could also return to the top of the U.S. government, depending on how the next presidential election turns out in 2024.
Meanwhile, Israeli President Isaac Herzog “called on the government to suspend the legislative process and enter talks with the opposition and the president of the Supreme Court,” Axios said. The ordinary legislative process was still continuing as of Monday, however. Predictably, Netanyahu lashed out against the protesters. Netanyahu supports a familiarly far-right approach to issues like the conflict between right-wing Israelis and the Palestinians over control of various areas of land in and around the country as internationally recognized.
“I say it again because this is our policy: A proper response to terrorism is to strike at it forcefully and further deepen our roots in our land,” Netanyahu recently said, seemingly in support of pushing out — and replacing with Israeli settlements — those even just perceived as somehow in league with terrorists, a category that history has proven could easily be extended to those not involved in violence at all. A version of his remarks on Twitter didn’t show overwhelming interest in basic standards of evidence in proving the nature of those targeted by his forces according to principles of what in the U.S. would be commonly known as due process. In general terms, he also referred, at least in an English version of his remarks, to so-called enemies of the Israelis as something other than human, which just isn’t a great sign for the status of the relationship between the country’s government and targeted Palestinians. “In recent days we have once again seen the immense difference between the brutality of our enemies and the humanity of our people,” he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting today:
"In recent days we have once again seen the immense difference between the brutality of our enemies and the humanity of our people.https://t.co/9bYXyTnzHM pic.twitter.com/UIsrreHAaU
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) February 12, 2023
Image: World Economic Forum/ Creative Commons
