Over 100,000 attend main judicial overhaul protest in Tel Aviv
Lapid: Choose judge selection committee members next month
the main demonstration on Kaplan street in tel Aviv opening the 20th week of protests against the government’s judicial reform legislation drew 135,000 people, according to protest organizers.
Demonstrations were also held across the country on saturday evening, including in jerusalem, Haifa, and Beersheba as well as some 150 additional locations across the country.
the lineup of speakers addressing the protesters on Kaplan street included prominent hi-tech entrepreneur and former budget department head at the Finance ministry shaul meridor, acclaimed author sefi Rachlevsky and Deputy mayor of tel Aviv, meital Lehavi.
the evening opened with demonstrations in Rehovot and Herzliya, some two hours before the end of shabbat.
“jerusalem Day is a celebration for the unification of our eternal capital. that’s why we decided in the sharon [area] to commemorate the day with a flag parade, celebrating the Israeli union between the jewish and the democratic. And in this unity lies our strength,” explained Dana oren Yannai, one of the organizers of the Herzliya
protest, attended by hundreds.
protests in Haifa began in merkaz Hacarmel, with thousands marching down HaNasi Boulevard toward Horev junction.
Around a thousand protesters gathered at Karkur junction and blocked the road there. one of the protesters was hit by a car in the commotion that developed on the road, walla reported.
A protest in Beersheba drew hundreds while in the Arava, dozens demonstrated at the Ein Yahav junction on Highway 90.
Earlier on saturday, protest organizers
released several statements regarding the main focus of this week’s demonstrations.
“The government’s plan to plunder the public treasury in favor of political corruption, rather than investing in the welfare of citizens, is a decisive step towards transforming Israel into a dictatorial regime,” they wrote. “This act is parallel to Hungary and Poland where public funds are constantly misappropriated to the regime.
“Netanyahu continues to waste time through deceptive negotiations while he gives NIS 14 billion of taxpayers’ money to his political allies,” they continued. “These corrupt actions serve as a means to facilitate the implementation of dictatorial laws.
“The negotiations allow Netanyahu to continue weakening the foundations of democracy. We call upon opposition leader Lapid and MK Gantz to withdraw from these deceptive negotiations immediately.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said on Saturday night that representatives for the Judicial Selection Committee should be chosen in June and the coalition should remove all judicial reform bills from the Knesset table. The Knesset should “immediately convene the committee and start working according to the rules that have been used all these years,” Lapid said.
The Yesh Atid leader said that the selections for the panel should include the seat traditionally reserved for the opposition. On May 15, coalition members warned that the opposition would not be guaranteed a seat on the committee, as enshrined in the judicial selection committee bill, if no agreement was reached.
In March, the Knesset voted to change bylaws and delay appointing representatives to the panel. The original deadline had been March 15, but the government extended it to June 15.
Lapid said that without the appointment of the representatives, there was no point to talks, and the opposition wouldn’t be part of a “fraud.”
Lapid also renewed calls for the government to backtrack the legislative process which had been halted right as the judicial selection committee bill had been sent to the Knesset.
“The government needs to remove all laws from the Knesset table and they need to understand there will be no situation in which the coalition chooses judges for itself,” Lapid wrote on Twitter. “It’s not going to happen. Not on our watch.”
Lapid said that the protests, which unfolded immediately after the reform principles were announced in the first week of January, had succeeded in stopping the coalition from passing legislation.
On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for national unity in a Jerusalem Day Speech.
He noted that the Israeli flag was seeing a renaissance,
and selling fast, not just for Jerusalem Day but also for anti-reform protests – adding that claims Israel was descending into a dictatorship were baseless.
“We are brothers,” said Netanyahu. “Without giving up on our important principles, we will always look for discussion and agreement, and my hope is that we’ll arrive at the day that all the flags will become one flowing river, all of us together.”
• than 350,000 people. Saudi Arabia would “not allow our region to turn into a field of conflicts,” he said, saying the page had been turned on “painful years of struggle.”
Washington has objected to any steps toward normalization with Assad, saying there must first be progress toward a political solution to the conflict.
“We understand the point of view of the United States and our partners in the West, but addressing the ongoing challenges requires a new approach and that will not come without dialog,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told a news conference.
“We will dialog with our partners in Europe and the United States to address the sources of their worry.”
“The Americans are dismayed. We (Gulf states) are people living in this region,
we’re trying to solve our problems as much as we can with the tools available to us in our hands,” said a Gulf source close to government circles.
A Gulf analyst told Reuters that Syria risked becoming a subsidiary of Iran, and asked: “Do we want Syria to be less Arab and more Iranian, or... to come back to the Arab fold?”
Having welcomed back Assad, Arab states also want him to curb a flourishing Syrian trade in narcotics, which are produced in Syria and smuggled across the region.
Zelensky, addressing the summit, asked the delegates to support Ukraine’s formula for peace in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and thanked Riyadh for its role in mediating a prisoner release last year.
In a letter to the summit, President Vladimir Putin said Russia attached “great importance to the development of friendly relations and constructive partnership” with regional states.
Gulf states have tried to remain neutral in the Ukraine conflict despite Western pressure on Gulf oil producers to help isolate Russia, a fellow OPEC+ member.
Arab leaders attending included Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who said in 2018 the region could not tolerate “a war criminal” like Assad. Qatar has reluctantly withdrawn its opposition to Riyadh’s move to readmit Syria.
The Syrian state news agency said Sheikh Tamim shook
hands with Assad, though Qatari media made no mention of that and Tamim left the gathering as the speeches were getting underway. A regional official said the two did not speak.
Salem Al-Meslit, a prominent figure in the Syrian political opposition to Assad, wrote on Twitter that Assad’s attendance was a “free reward for a war criminal.”
The war has shattered Syria’s economy, demolishing infrastructure, cities and factories. Assad could benefit from Gulf investment in his country, though US sanctions complicate any commercial ties with Damascus.
Then US President Donald Trump branded Assad an “animal” for using chemical weapons in 2018 – a weapon he consistently denied using.
While Washington opposes normalization with Assad, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said there are “a number of shared objectives” such as bringing home Austin Tice, a former US marine and journalist kidnapped in Syria in 2012.
Assad’s return to the Arab fold is part of a wider trend in the Middle East where adversaries have been taking steps to mend ties strained by years of conflict and rivalry.
The rapprochement with Assad gained momentum after China negotiated an agreement in March that saw Riyadh resume diplomatic ties with Iran, which with Russia has helped Assad defeat Sunni rebels and regain control of some
major cities.
A large swathe of Syria, however, remains under Turkish-backed rebels and radical Islamist groups, as well as a US-backed Kurdish militia.
According to UNHCR since 2011, more than 14 million Syrians have fled their homes, and about 6.8 million remain displaced in their own country, where 90% of the population live below the poverty line. About 5.5 million Syrian refugees live in neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.
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