Protesters throng Israeli cities over judiciary plan

Renewed rallies show the debate is far from over

JERUSALEM — Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated across the country Tuesday, blocking the road outside the country’s main airport and about a dozen other thoroughfares and clashing with police officers to protest an overnight vote in parliament that advanced efforts by the far-right ruling coalition to limit judicial oversight of the government.

Thousands of protesters poured into the street beside the main terminal at Ben-Gurion International Airport, honking horns, chanting slogans, and holding aloft scores of Israeli flags, in a scene more reminiscent of a packed sports stadium than an airport taxi rank.

Others rallied in at least 20 towns and cities, often blocking traffic until being dispersed by police, in what protest leaders called a “day of disruption.”

One group of demonstrators erected tents on a major intersection in central Israel. Another crowd gathered outside a US consular building in Tel Aviv, calling on the Biden administration to do more to help their cause. The United States provides Israel with more than $3 billion in military aid each year.

While President Biden has been critical of the judicial overhaul plan and described the current Israeli government as the most extreme he has encountered in his political career, Israeli opposition members say that the US government should take an even stronger stance.

Doctors showed their support by gathering outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, while women’s rights activists — dressed in crimson robes inspired by characters from “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a novel by Margaret Atwood about a patriarchal, totalitarian state — marched in the city.

The intensity of the protests did not rise to the levels of unrest seen in March, when leading trade unions shut down large parts of the Israeli economy to protest the government’s earlier efforts to curb judicial power. But the protests led to clashes with police officers, who fired water cannons at protesters in several cities and arrested at least 71 people in attempts to break up the demonstrations.

The renewed demonstrations showed that the debate over the judicial overhaul is far from over. After a three-month hiatus in which the government and the opposition sought but failed to reach a compromise, Israeli leaders are proceeding once again with parts of the plan, provoking widespread anger.

Since the earlier wave of protests in late March, the government has suspended, although not completely scrapped, legislative moves to give itself more control over the selection of judges. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said in an interview last week that he would not advance plans to let parliament override Supreme Court decisions.

But to assuage far-right allies, Netanyahu is still pressing ahead with a more obscure part of the plan that would impose limits on when the Supreme Court could overrule parliament. And it is that proposal — provisionally approved by lawmakers overnight in a majority 64-56 vote —that set off the protests Tuesday.

If the bill passes two further votes in the coming weeks, it will stop the court from using the legal standard of “reasonableness” to countermand the government.