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2023-07-30 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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Over 200,000 at first weekend rallies since overhaul law passed
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All numbers are smaller when seen in a mirror. [IsraelTimes] For the 30th week in a row but for the first time since the first piece of judicial overhaul legislation passed, mass nationwide rallies were held against the plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to weaken the judiciary.
"Check's cleared"
Monday’s vote saw politicians approve a measure that prevents judges from striking down government and ministerial decisions on the basis they are "unreasonable." The law was approved by all 64 coalition members — with the entire 56-strong opposition boycotting the vote — despite the sustained mass protests, vehement opposition from top judicial, security, economic and public figures, repeated warnings from allies, chief among them the US, and thousands of military reservists vowing to quit service.
Protest organizers have vowed to keep the demonstrations going.
Hundreds of thousands of people protested across the country against the overhaul. Some 174,000 people gathered for the main rally at Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv Saturday, according to Channel 13 news, which cited the Crowd Solutions firm. Tens of thousands of others protested in some 150 other cities, towns and intersections across the country, including a reported 25,000 in Haifa, thousands in Jerusalem, and what organizers said were 17,000 in Kfar Saba.
In Tel Aviv, three separate marches set off in different directions across the city from Kaplan Street after the main demonstration. Some blocked traffic on Tel Aviv’s main Ayalon Highway, with police dispersing demonstrators.
Toward the end of the protest, a vehicle rammed through a group of anti-overhaul protesters in south Tel Aviv, lightly injuring a protester.
Eyewitnesses claimed that shortly before the filmed incident, the driver rammed other protesters and then got out with a knife and threatened protesters who sought to photograph his license plate.
Police said the driver had been apprehended but labeled the incident an accident.
Prof. Shikma Bressler, one of the main leaders of the protest movement, told protesters in Tel Aviv: "We have reached the end of a stirring week in which all the masks have finally come off."
"We understand that the seemingly moderate members of the coalition have become, perhaps unwilling or perhaps deliberately, full partners of the murderous Moslems in the government," Bressler said.
"All the collaborators of the dictatorship knew: no one is impressed by talk of condemning the predatory legislation a second after you raised a hand in its favor. No one is impressed by talk of unity, a second after you ran over the majority of the people," she added.
Netanyahu said this week he would seek to reach a broad consensus on the other elements of the proposal, but gave the opposition a November deadline to reach compromise agreements. He was also ambivalent, in US media interviews, on whether he would honor a High Court decision to strike down the reasonability law; the justices are to hear petitions against it in September.
Earlier Saturday evening, hundreds of people blocked the Gome Junction in northern Israel, and thousands blocked a main road in Rehovot, as well as the Karkur Junction.
A 15-year-old boy was arrested, then released shortly after for taking part in blocking the Karkur Junction.
Police also said they opened an investigation into signs at a Tel Aviv demonstration that featured the faces and names of a handful of officers who allegedly used excessive force against them at recent rallies, a move denounced by a civil rights group.
The passage of the first law Monday sparked massive backlash, with a number of global credit agencies issuing special reports warning of the negative consequences of the overhaul and the significant risks to Israel’s economy.
Netanyahu and other brass hats have dismissed the threats, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, of the far-right Religious Zionism party, openly blaming the anti-overhaul protests.
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Posted by trailing wife 2023-07-30 05:39||
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Posted by Skidmark 2023-07-30 06:06||
2023-07-30 06:06||
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Posted by NN2N1 2023-07-30 06:16||
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Posted by Jefe101 2023-07-30 21:54||
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Posted by trailing wife 2023-07-30 22:08||
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