Mon 24 July 2023:
Israeli Parliament on Monday approved the contentious “reasonableness” law that prevents judicial checks on political power, after weeks of unprecedented protests that have crippled the country.
The bill passed with 64 votes in favour and zero against it, with opposition boycotting the final vote on the bill in protest. It is the first major bill to pass in the government’s judicial overhaul.
Multiple last-minute attempts within the Knesset to amend the bill or to come to a broader procedural compromise with the opposition failed.
Members of the Israeli opposition have filed out of the Knesset chanting “shame, shame” before the third and decisive vote on the bill was held.
Ruling coalition members posed for celebratory pictures after the passage of the “reasonableness clause”, an outcome some protesters saw as preferable compared with the compromise measures floated in the past few hours.
“A compromise would take the wind out of the sail of the resistance,” explained Danny Lanser, an Israeli navy veteran. “It is one little battle in a war, and overall, I think it will lead to our final victory.”
Lanser said the bill was part of a larger crisis dividing Israeli society between religious-nationalist government supporters and the more secular opposition.
Israeli watchdog group to challenge new law
The Movement for Quality Government, a civil society group, has announced it will challenge the new law in the Supreme Court as more protests are expected.
The grassroots protest movement condemned the vote, saying Netanyahu’s “government of extremists is showing their determination to jam their fringe ideology down the throats of millions of citizens”.
“No one can predict the extent of damage and social upheaval that will follow the passage of the legislation,” it said.
Lapid says Netanyahu ‘a puppet on the strings of extremists’
Opposition leader Yair Lapid has accused the ruling coalition of abusing its power and Netanyahu of being “a puppet on the strings of extremists and messianists” after the Knesset passes the first of the government’s judicial overhaul bills.
“This is a complete breaking of the rules of the game,” Lapid said, according to The Times of Israel. “The government and coalition can choose what direction the state goes in, but it can’t decide the character of the state.”
He asked military reservists who had threatened to halt their military service if the legislation were passed to wait for a Supreme Court ruling before pulling out.
‘Storm’ brewing
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara says what is happening now in Israel “is the gathering storm”.
“Clearly, there is a serious civil rights movement within the country that is also trying to restore credibility to the justice system within the country ay least as far as the Jewish [citizens] are concerned.”
A number of elements have been coming together, Bishara added.
“That includes trade and labour unions, the corporate Israeli high-tech industry, and parts of the military and former military generals. It even includes some of the security heads that are really worried about what might become of the country,” he said.
Bishara added that US pressure on Israel has “hardly ever worked” and the only meaningful pressure will be that from the Israeli public.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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