TEL AVIV, March 18th. /TASS/. Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Israel on Saturday evening to protest, expressing their opposition to the policies of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and his planned reform of the country’s judiciary. The largest rally, as in previous weeks, took place in Tel Aviv, where opposition sentiments are especially strong, a TASS correspondent reports.
Demonstrators with drums and torches marched from Dizengoff Square in the city center, chanting pro-democracy slogans, and joined another group of protesters outside the government complex in the east of the city. Traditionally, a big rally took place there.
The speakers harshly criticized the policy of the Netanyahu government, spoke about the inadmissibility of the usurpation of power, which, according to the opposition, could lead to judicial reform. The protesters carried many Israeli flags and chanted slogans: “Democracy” and “Israel is not a dictatorship.” Any mention of Netanyahu and his cabinet was greeted by the crowd with whistles and shouts of “Shame!”
Saturday mass opposition protests are held in Israel for the 11th week in a row. In addition to the largest rally in Tel Aviv, demonstrations took place in many other cities of the country, including Jerusalem, Haifa, Beersheba, Netanya. In total, according to the organizers, the rallies that evening took place in 120 different locations across the country.
According to channel 13 Israeli television, about 175 thousand people took part in the Tel Aviv rally, and a total of about 260 thousand demonstrators took to the streets throughout the country.
Protests in Israel
Mass protests by the opposition against Netanyahu’s cabinet, who was sworn in at the end of last year, have been going on since early January. The reason for the protests was the draft judicial reform proposed by the new government, which, in particular, involves limiting the powers of the Supreme Court and giving the cabinet control over the selection of judges.
According to the opposition, this reform undermines the democratic foundations of the state. Netanyahu insists that his government was formed following democratic elections and will carry out the program that the majority of voters voted for, despite the confrontational rhetoric of the opposition.
On Wednesday evening, Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog addressed fellow citizens in connection with protests over judicial reform. In his speech on television, he stated that the country was on the verge of an acute civil conflict, and called on all parties to establish a dialogue. To this end, the president has put forward his own plan for judicial reform, which, in his opinion, takes into account the views of all parties and is a compromise. Netanyahu and the leaders of the ruling coalition rejected the proposal, saying that it would not achieve the desired balance between the branches of government.
