Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Demonstrations turn violent
Israeli police crack down on anti-Netanyahu protesters
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli police Wednesday fired stun grenades and water cannons at demonstrators who blocked a Tel Aviv highway, while protesters scuffled with police near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in Jerusalem as weeks of anti-government protests turned violent for the first time.
Thousands across the country staged a “national disruption day,” the latest in a string of mass protests against Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul Israel’s judiciary and weaken the country’s Supreme Court.
The plan has drawn heavy criticism from wide swaths of Israeli society and pleas from international allies for Netanyahu to slow down.
A wave of unusually intense Israeli-Palestinian violence in the occupied West Bank has helped fuel tensions, with radical West Bank settlers rampaging through a Palestinian village earlier this week.
Netanyahu and his coalition partners, a collection of ultra-Orthodox and hard-line nationalist parties, say the plan is needed to rein in the powers of unelected judges.
Critics say Netanyahu, a defendant standing trial on corruption charges, holds a personal grudge against the justice system and is pushing the country toward autocracy.
In Tel Aviv, crowds of protesters amassed outside a salon where Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, had gone to get her hair done late Wednesday. Israeli media said police were called to rescue her as protesters chanted, “The country is burning and Sara is getting a haircut!”
The Netanyahus have been criticized for being out of touch with regular Israelis and living a lavish lifestyle at taxpayer expense. Last week, an Israeli parliamentary committee approved new funding for Netanyahu and his family.
In a late-night address, Netanyahu criticized the anti-government protesters and attempted to compare them to the violent mob of settlers that tore through the West Bank town of Hawara this week, torching dozens of homes, businesses and cars, and killing one Palestinian.
“The freedom to demonstrate is not a license to drag the country into anarchy,”
Netanyahu said. “We will not accept breaking the rules and violence, not in Hawara, not in Tel Aviv and not anywhere.”
He also said the protests “crossed a red line” by “threatening my wife in Tel Aviv.”
Netanyahu made no mention of a call Wednesday by his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand West Bank settler leader, for Hawara to be “erased” by the Israeli state.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price called on Netanyahu to “publicly and clearly reject” Smotrich’s comments, describing them as “repugnant” and “irresponsible.”
Smotrich later tried to walk back his comments, saying he didn’t mean to “wipe out” the entire town, but only to take tough action against militants and their supporters.
Protests continued into the night. Near Netanyahu’s Jerusalem home, demonstrators briefly broke down a barricade and scuffled with security forces.
Since they started two months ago, the protests have been large, colorful, rowdy — and violence-free. But that changed Wednesday, when National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of a far-right party, ordered police to take tougher action against “anarchists” who blocked roads.
In the first scenes of unrest, police on horseback in the center of the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv hurled stun grenades and used a water cannon against thousands who chanted “democracy” and “police state.”
Police said protesters threw rocks and water bottles at the officers.
In Tel Aviv and later in Jerusalem, the protesters shouted “Where were you in Hawara?” at policemen, referring to Sunday’s settler rampage that went largely unchecked and unpunished. The military has said it was not prepared for the mob in Hawara, and that it took hours to bring the situation under control.
Police said they arrested dozens of protesters nationwide for disturbing the peace Wednesday while 11 people were hospitalized, according to Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.
Earlier in the day, protesters blocked Tel Aviv’s main freeway and the highway connecting the city to Jerusalem, halting traffic for about an hour. At train stations in Tel Aviv, protesters prevented trains from departing by blocking their doors.
Thousands turned out across the country waving Israeli flags. Parents marched with their children, tech workers walked off the job to demonstrate and doctors in scrubs rallied outside hospitals.
“Every person here is trying to keep Israel a democracy and if the current government will get its way, then we are afraid we will no longer be a democracy or a free country,” said Arianna Shapira, a protester in Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu’s allies have called for dialogue with the opposition but shown no signs of backing down from the judicial overhaul – which includes a proposal to give them control over the appointment of judges and another that would allow parliament to overturn Supreme Court decisions.
Critics, including influential business leaders, former military officers, academics and economists, say the plan will erode the country’s system of checks and balances and concentrate power in the hands of the prime minister.
President Joe Biden has expressed concern about the program, and Israel’s currency, the shekel, has tumbled in value due to concerns about capital flight.